Vivek Agnihotri says Pathaan’s success is ‘the victory of the age-old, exploitative, nepotistic system’: ‘They’ll go back to believing that audience is an idiot’

Vivek Agnihotri added that Pathaan’s promotions turned into a “political campaign” and said that “aajkal films political campaign banne bhi lagi hain (these days films are a political campaign).” He then said that the SRK starrer’s success should also be credited to those who threatened to boycott it and made “stupid statements” about the film. “Pathaan worked purely because of the charisma, the fan following of Shah Rukh. The way he marketed it, the way he took it on his shoulders ‘that, okay it’s my film and I am responsible for it’ which is pretty good. I also think that some credit should also go to people who were making stupid statements against the film and people who were unnecessarily protesting and asking for boycott and these are different people from regular ‘Boycott Bollywood’ gang,” he said. The filmmaker added, “There were also some violent factors who were saying we’ll burn this, we’ll burn that. They also contributed to this. And obviously our media channels.”

Idiots can listen to an out of context, 25 sec clip and People with Substance can listen to full podcast here: https://t.co/zfd1yfVKjd https://t.co/KdlDvG7hKG

— Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) February 14, 2023

The part where he seems to be praising Shah Rukh is being widely circulated on social media. Vivek had previously criticised Pathaan song “Besharam Rang” while it was in the midst of a controversy. Clearing his stance, Vivek shared on Twitter, “Idiots can listen to an out of context, 25 sec clip and People with Substance can listen to full podcast here.”

Pathaan has made Rs 953 crore at the global box office so far and is still minting money.