Anurag Kashyap: Jumping on the bandwagon of making pan-India movies is destroying Bollywood

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap is one of those directors who doesn't follow the norms and is renowned for thinking outside the box when making movies, contrary to what is now happening in the Hindi film business. The director also blames the industry's propensity to follow trends as a big factor in why movies have been underperforming at the box office.

In addition to his films, Kashyap is also known for making outlandish comments that get him into trouble at times. His films, such as Paanch and Black Friday, have been avoided by the censor board long before the #Boycott trend in Bollywood even emerged.

Anurag identified Bollywood's present obsession with producing pan-India films and explained how it is ruining it. In reference, he mentioned how people wanted to copy Nagraj Manjule's "Sairat" once it became a major success; for the record, Janhvi Kapoor's "Dhadak" was also a remake of that movie. 

In the roundtable discussion presented by Galatta Plus on YouTube, Anurag Kashyap said: “With pan-India, what is happening right now is that everybody is trying to make pan-India film. Success will be 5-10%. Films like Kantara and Pushpa give you the courage to go out and tell your stories. But KGF 2, however big the success, when you try and emulate that and set a project up, that’s when you start heading towards disaster. That’s the bandwagon that Bollywood destroyed itself on. You Have to find films that give you courage.”

Following the success of SS Rajamouli's Bahubali, the term "pan-India" gained popularity, and ever since then, people have been trying to imitate films in order to make money and simply shape their storylines in the same way. This year, the pan-Indian films KGF Chapter 2, The RRR, Ponniyin Selvan: I, and Brahmastra: Part One-Shiva all enjoyed success. On the professional front, this year saw the release of Anurag's movie, Dobaara, starring Tapsee Pannu, which failed to draw audiences into theatres.