Noted director Anurag Kashyap has recently expressed his worry about the large and demanding train of Bollywood celebrities, expanding that their huge expenditures are playing a large role in the inability of large-budget Bollywood films to turn in profits. Kashyap, in an interview with Humans of Cinema, said that star azaadis and unnecessary expenses are the primary reasons for films turning out to be a disaster and should not be included in the film’s budget.
The Entourage Culture
Speaking on the issue, Kashyap reflected on the trending developments of vanity vans and entourage that have reportedly become a norm in the industry. Discussing his time on the widely appreciated ‘Sacred Games,’ he said, “I had never seen so many vanity vans on my set as I saw on Sacred Games. That’s how the culture got started. Kashyap is of the opinion that this change has shifted financial priorities away from filmmaking to the opulence of the stars and their crews.
Misallocation of Budgets
Kashyap went on to say that presently, films are made more as business entities than as artistic expressions and pointed out that the major chunk of the budgets were spent on expenses that had no relation to the creative aspects of the film. He noted that most of the time, the money spent in the production of the film is spent to fit the needs and demands of the actors. “Let’s make this very clear: when one does a film, you are working, you are making a film, it’s “not a holiday, it’s not a picnic, you know a lot of money which is spent is not spent in making the film it is spent on paraphernalia, it is spent on entourage,” he said. Kashyap then gave an instance of such demands, shooting off a car three hours away from a local jungle locatiindustry’s a five-star burger for an actor.
Industrit’splications
Regarding this trend, Kashyap pointed out a very important fact for the industry: that it is a negative driving force for the financial health of the industry. In this regard, he noted that it is reasonable to pay technical crews who are often neglected while the increasing costs of meeting stars’ demands are alarming. Many times, Kashyap’semands prove to be expensive and put pressure on the main aspects that are necessary for a good movie, including the script, direction, editing, and other relevant sections; thus, the audience is left disappointed and unsatisfied by poor movies.
Anurag Kashyap’s Upcoming Projects
Nevertheless, Kashyap does not stop criticizing the companies’ present practices and goes on to work on new ventures. Earlier, he announced the list of actomovie’swould be starring in his next movie. One of the actors is Malayalam Kashyap’su George, who is making his debut in the Hindi film Industry. The same project also casts Bobby Deol, Sanya Malhotra, Sapnastars, Riddhi Sen, Ankush Gedam, and Nagesh Bhonsle, among others. In May, Kashyap even shared a screenshot of a publication where the movie roll and cast were mentioned, something which created hoopla among the followers of Kashyap.
The bitter truth that Anurag Kashyap expressed causes a major problem that seems to be inherent in Bollywood. For him, the over-spending associated with stars’ entitlements must make moviemakers interrogate their priorities from where budgetary allocation towards the core creativity and technical input in filmmaking are concerned. Thus, the industry can create qualitative pictures that will interest the viewers and earn money at the box office rather than sinking into financial problems due to unneeded enhancements.