Madhur Bhandarkar says the audience's attitude towards Bollywood changed after Sushant Singh Rajput's death: Maybe, the industry ignored him…

Director Madhur Bhandarkar, whose credits include Chandni Bar, Fashion, and Page 3, among many others, recently claimed that the tragic death of star Sushant Singh Rajput exacerbated audience resentment towards the film business. At his Mumbai home in June 2020, Sushant passed away. In an interview on Maniesh Paul's podcast, Madhur stated that despite the boycott, people still flock to the movies to see movies when the content is good. He also noted that the boycott culture isn't particularly new to the film business.

“It has happened many times before. Like in the case of Gangubai Kathiawadi, people watched it and it was nice. I think this (boycott culture) is a phase. If the film is nice and the content is strong, people will go and watch. People watched Kantara, The Kashmir Files, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, it’s not like people don’t go to watch the movies,” said.

A small segment of the audience, according to Madhur, has decided to boycott the film, and they have a right to their view. He then said, “I have noticed that this (boycott) happened largely after the passing of Sushant Singh Rajput. Maybe the industry ignored him… He was from a non film background and he came and he struggled… It was a very unfortunate, untimely demise and from there, the anger amid the public got aggravated. It is the public’s opinion.”

A few years before to the boycott craze, political opposition existed to Madhur's movie Indu Sarkar, which was set during the Emergency period. The Page 3 filmmaker claimed that no one from the film industry supported him at the time.

He said, “I had no one. No one from the film industry stood by my side . A lot of people who speak about freedom of expression, no one even tweeted when my film was in trouble. I have always stood for other people’s movies. I was feeling bad, I was fighting a lonely battle.”