Filmmaker Karan Johar says a rustic that believed when Shah Rukh Khan opened his arms and fell in love with a lady on the massive display, is not any extra serious about moving into theatres to look at love tales. Karan Johar has directed and produced a number of the greatest romances in fashionable Hindi cinema like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Kal Ho Naa Ho and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna.
Johar on Wednesday stated his analysis reveals that over the previous couple of years, the viewers has shifted to genres apart from romance for theatre-going experiences. This has pressured the trade to eschew love tales and deal with “high concept” storytelling as an alternative. Johar’s personal final relationship drama, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016), hardly made any influence.
“Today if you notice in Hindi cinema, the love story is dead. We don’t make love stories anymore, they’re few. The 90s thrived on romances, starting from Hum Aapke Hai Koun..! going right up to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. It was dictated by love stories.”
Johar was talking on the launch of streaming big’s Netflix’s slate of film and sequence titles for 2021. Johar is making 5 initiatives for the streamer, together with the romantic movie, Meenakshi Sundareshwar. The love story stars Sanya Malhotra and Abhimanyu Dassani.
Johar revealed that he had initially envisioned the movie for theatres however a dialogue with Srishti Behl Arya, Director- International Original Film, Netflix India, made him suppose an OTT launch could be a extra viable possibility.
“Now I’m told to make love stories for Netflix. The film that we are making, Meenakshi Sundareshwar is a love story. That story came to me as a theatrical film. When Srishti (Behl) heard it and said let’s do this for the platform, I did some data and an academic thought on it and realised this can be done.”
That introduced Srishti to the query that whether or not Karan Johar would make a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai for Netflix sooner or later. Johar didn’t have a straight reply and as an alternative replied, “It’s a vast and complicated question.”
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, which marked Johar’s debut in 1998, starred Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Rani Mukerji. A typical love triangle on the onset, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai rewrote the grammar of Hindi movie romance as its story, dialogues, Shah Rukh’s incomparable allure and his chemistry with Kajol spoke to the youth. More than 20 years later, it continues to captivate the viewers’s creativeness.
Johar talked about although the market tells him that romantic tales will discover few takers in cinema halls, he believes Bollywood romances are too huge to be contained on small screens. “There’s a certain syntax that’s meant for the cinema halls. It’s a result of the history of that genre, form of cinema, which leads to a reference for the theatres. If you make a Dabangg, a Dhoom series or a Shah Rukh Khan romance, which is larger than life. When he spreads his arms and falls in love, you associate that with nostalgia and the memory of watching that film in a cinema hall. So the cinegoer in you would feel that film is meant for cinema halls.”
“There’s a data that supports certain genres, which aren’t working on cinema halls anymore but have a wide audience on platforms.” Towards the top of the reply, Johar lastly answered Srishti’s query, whereas making clear it has evoked a battle between the filmmaker and the “practical voice” in him.
“So would I make a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai? As a filmmaker, a scream inside says no. But a practical voice also says, ‘Wait and watch.’” Johar ascertained that being within the film enterprise, he can’t afford to be unhappy a few change in viewers’s viewing habits and must ultimately make peace with the truth that the way forward for romantic movies lies within the digital house.
“There’s not sadness, as that would not be a feeling I should have as a filmmaker because I should be open to all platforms, but there’s a lot of nostalgia associated with certain genres. But the generation today is consuming Netflix and watching it in such varied and wide numbers, that perhaps it’s going to be a large part of our viewing future.”
