Are our Bollywood filmmakers taking the audience for granted?

Cinema lovers in India are truly and totally dedicated to their favourite stars, and hang by their words, no matter how absurd or how preposterous. However, filmmakers and B-Townies too, at times, take advantage of this gullible nature of the fans, and take them for granted. A quite noticeable instance of this would be as to how filmmakers announce big and ambitious projects, and after weaving it around the emotions of anticipating stars, shelve it due to some reason or the other.

If you would remember, sometime back, somewhere around 2012 to be precise, Karan Johar, the most loved director and producer, had announced the ambitious project ‘Shuddhi’, with names of Hrithik Roshan and Priyanka Chopra doing rounds for the main leads. It was touted to be the adaptation of the popular Shiva Trilogy written by Amish Tripathi, but the rumours were later refuted by the makers. Then it was said to be a story of incarnation. Somehow, the plot kept shifting and none of the actors were being finalised, till KJo somewhat confirmed that it will be Salman Khan playing the lead role. Till date, nothing is confirmed as to what the status of the project is, and after so much anticipation and wait, the fans too have given up hope on the same.

Second in the list is the third instalment of the much loved ‘Munna Bhai’ series, ‘Munna Bhai Chale America’. The makers were so enthusiastic that they launched the teaser of the movie too, creating a positive furore among the fans of the franchise, and did not consider the fact that Sanjay Dutt might soon have to go to jail to serve his term. The latter happened, and as fate would have it, this movie too got shelved, along with the hopes of all the fans who actually wanted to see Munna and Circuit back in action.

The remake of ‘Ram Lakhan’ too had been doing rounds for quite some time, and the fans, us included, were particularly interested to watch a new version of this epic 1989 drama, which was supposed to be helmed by ‘Golmaal’ franchise fame Rohit Shetty. Our anticipation actually hit the roof, when reports of Ranveer Singh doing the role of Lakhan started doing rounds, and none other than the actual ‘Lakhan’, Anil Kapoor, expressed his desire for the same. All our hopes were however squished, when Rohit Shetty said that no such project is in the pipeline for now. Another instance of how casually our beloved banners and filmmakers have started taking the emotional connection of a fan with their films.

Quite recently, there is a hall-a- boo around the next Sanjay Leela Bhansali project, ‘Padmavati’, which, if reports are to be believed, will have Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone in the role of Allauddin Khilji and Rani Padmavati respectively. Like the examples quoted above, this movie too is going the same way, with the constant shuffling of cast, no official announcement, a news or rumour popping up every other day. Though we really want to see this magnificent saga unfold on the silver screen, we are not sure what to believe till the actual announcement or confirmation comes from the makers or stars themselves.

We, the audience, invest so much into our movies, our emotions and our fandom, so it is but obvious for us to get excited when our favourite filmmakers and stars announce a project. Our imagination goes into a hyper drive, and we are all starry eyed for the movie. However, it really is a disappointment when later on, the movie is shelved or just cut off by a casual comment. Do let us know your views about the same in the comments’ section.

Kadambari Srivastava

Grammar Nazi, word weaver, dreamer, bibliophile, technophile, caffeine addict, foodie, shuttling shopaholic! Mash it in a Bollywood recipe and voila! Pushpa, you’ve got her!