Filmmaker-cum actor Prakash Jha, known for giving hits like Gangajal and Apaharan is soon making a comeback to acting with a small budget film Matto Ki Saikil. The film has a rural backdrop with Jha portraying the role of an ordinary man out to fulfill his small dreams. While promoting the film, Prakash got into an exclusive chat with a leading daily to talk about the current Boycott trend in Bollywood and what needs to be changed to bring things back on track.
According to Prakash, directors are focusing more on getting an A-list actor on board rather than working on film scripts and this making their film budgets going really high. “As a filmmaker you have to accomplish whatever you need to do. However, the budgets of the films because of the fees of the actors have gone haywire. There is a reason why films are not working, and that is because we are not investing in the subject. We are not investing in the script. We are creating proposals with A-list artists. Also, a relatively new actor with just one hit starts demanding the moon and there are people ready to pay him,” he quoted.
Talking about recent failure at box office, Laal Singh Chaddha, Jha said that it is difficult to blame Cancel calls for film’s poor performance because people who watched it did no heap praises on it. “Unless there is a comprehensive study about a film which is genuinely good and does not do well because of the boycott, one can’t compare. So far, that has not happened. There was a boycott call for Laal Singh Chaddha. One was concerned about it but then, even the people who watched the film did not speak very highly of it. People realise from the trailer or from the publicity what the film has to offer. If a good film like Lagaan or Dangal gets boycotted, then I will say yes, boycott has an impact,” he stated.
Further in the conversation, Rajneeti director said that A-list actors are not available to him anymore as he doesn’t like finishing with films in 30 days or so. “I am facing difficulty. I don’t work with A-list actors. I have stopped that. They don’t want to work with me either. Actors like Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Ranveer Singh, and Ranbir Kapoor are not easily available to me because I don’t make a proposal like that. I don’t want to finish a film in 30 days’ time because the actor wants to move on to another project. I want to do my project the way I want. Many don’t want to work on a difficult script. It is not to say that it might not happen someday, but it is difficult,” he concluded.