JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL
Imtiaz Ali on people writing off Bollywood in 2022: 'Main dus baar sunn chuka hoon ab Bollywood nahi chalega'
Imtiaz Ali, who is gearing up for the release of his upcoming film Amar Singh Chamkila, talks about the time when people were busy writing off Bollywood. Read on.
Imtiaz Ali is currently in the news for his upcoming film based on the life of the late Punjabi singer Amar Singh Chamkila. As the buzz around the film grows consistently, the filmmaker opened up about the time when people were busy writing off Bollywood and said that the trend of watching cinema will never fade away.
Imtiaz Ali on why the trend of watching films in cinemas will never fade away
Bollywood struggled to produce hit films from 2020 to 2022, making many people wonder if the trend of watching movies in cinemas had faded away. But the industry made a strong comeback in 2023 with films like Pathaan, Jawan, Gadar 2, and Animal doing historic business. During an interaction with DNA India, Imtiaz Ali was asked about the time when people were busy writing off Bollywood.
Talking about it, he said, "Main dus baar sunn chuka hoon, ab Bollywood nahi chalega. Jab main aaya tha industry mein logo ne kaha tha 'Ab khatam ho gaya theater, ab nahi chalega.' Even before that, when VCR came, people said the same things."(I have heard ten times that Bollywood films won't work now. When I came into the industry, people said, 'The theaters are no more, now people won't visit them').
"When color television came, there was a similar opinion. Logo ne kaha hai kayi baar ki 'Cinema bandh ho jayega', magar cinema bandh hua nahi, kyuki hum jaise dreamers hai jo dekhte bhi hai and banate bhi hai." (People have repeatedly said that cinema will come to an end, but cinema didn't die because dreamers like us watched it and made it as well.)
Why is Imtiaz Ali's Amar Singh Chamkila being released on OTT and not in cinemas?
Imtiaz Ali has made films like Jab We Met, Love Aaj Kal, Rockstar, and Tamasha for cinema lovers in the past. But his Amar Singh Chamkila is releasing on the OTT platform Netflix and not in cinemas. When asked about the same, he said, "When I make a movie, I'm seeing it on the big screen only. I decided to make it more cinematic because this is going on OTT."
"When I pick a movie to watch on OTT, I pick the most cinematically rich film. So I wanted Chamkila to be like that," he added.
Amar Singh Chamkila, starring Diljit Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra in the lead, is slated for release on April 12, 2024.
ALSO READ: Chamkila: Diljit Dosanjh on apprehensions regarding film; 'I thought Imtiaz Ali was going to sue us'
Latest Articles
