Filmmaker Rohit Shetty feels one should not expect huge budgets for action films from Bollywood unless it gets a worldwide market like the Hollywood. The successful director known for delivering commercial hits like Simmba, Singham and Chennai Express was at an interactive session at the 20th edition of FICCI FRAMES, the global media and entertainment enclave, Mumbai, on Tuesday.
Talking about the correlation between budget and market and the constant comparisons drawn between the two industries, Shetty said, “I think we have the access to skill, computer graphics and other technologies. But we don’t have the budget for them. We do not get the required budget because we don’t have the market. I see no reason to compare us to Hollywood.”
” In Hollywood, they release a film in one language — English — and the whole of America watches it. But when we are releasing a film in Hindi in India, we are also competing with the regional film industry like Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Bengali and other films that are also doing well at the box office. That is why we have competition within ourselves,” he added.
Shetty also believes the need of the hour is to increase screen density in small towns because of the business that comes from there, especially for the kind of films that are “massy”.
He wants the government to help in the matter. His last film, Simmba, a huge hit, saw a footfall of 2 crore. In a country with a population of 135 crore, he said this was nothing.
Shetty also spoke on the issue of piracy, a problem that has been constant in the industry. He stated, “People prefer to watch movies on their mobiles because in an urban area like Mumbai, nobody wants to get stuck in the traffic for hours to watch a film. It is convenient for them to watch the pirated version of a film on their phones.”
“We keep saying piracy is happening, but who is watching them? We have to take a stand and stop watching films like that. Unless we do it, only the government initiatives won’t work,” said the filmmaker.