Vivek Agnihotri says Bollywood is ‘blind, deaf’ to not learn from The Kashmir Files, Kartikeya 2 and Kantara’s success

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has come down heavily on Bollywood for ‘not learning’ from the success of unheralded films like his directorial The Kashmir Files and the Kannada film Kantara. The year 2022 has seen several big budget films take a dive at the box office while smaller films, many of them from down south, have done well. Vivek asked Bollywood to ‘understand simple maths’. Also read: Kantara surpasses KGF 1 to be second highest-grossing Kannada film of all time

Giving a reference of the two films mentioned above as well as Telugu film Karthikeya 2 and R Madhavan’s Tamil-Hindi bilingual Rocketry: The Nambi Effect, Vivek wrote, “4 small films with no stars, no marketing or distribution support – #TheKashmirFiles, #Kartikeya2, #Kantara & #Rocketry earned approx 800 Cr at BO. Total cost of production of 4 films under 75 cr. Is Bollywood blind, deaf & dumb that they don’t understand simple Maths and learn?”

Reacting to Vivek’s tweet, many viewers said that Bollywood was unable to unlearn old habits. “Unlearning is a difficult and time consuming process,” wrote one. Many others differed from Vivek’s assertion and said that Rocketry did have a star in Madhavan. One user tweeted, “saying Rocketry didnt had star is false…Madhavan is a huge star down south and the Tamil and Hindi version had Suriya and SRK as guest appearances.”

The Kashmir Files, Vivek’s film, was made on a reported budget of around ₹15 crore. The film was a sleeper hit as it grew by word of mouth and ended up grossing ₹341 crore worldwide. Similarly, Karthikeya 2, starring Nikhil Siddhartha, was made on a similar budget and ended up grossing ₹120 crore globally. Rocketry made ₹50 crore on a reported ₹25-crore budget. Rishab Shetty’s Kantara is still running in theatres. The small film has grossed over ₹250 crore and is the third-highest-grossing Kannada film of all time.

The Kashmir Files, and Kantara outperformed big budget films like Laal Singh Chaddha, Vikram Vedha, Radhe Shyam, and Samrat Prithviraj, all of which had big stars and budgets of over ₹100 crore each.