Ram Gopal Varma On Box Office Failure Of ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’: Who Would Have Imagined An Aamir Khan Film Would Bomb?

Aamir Khan's ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ failed to live up to the expectations of the audience and the critics, and turned out to be one of the biggest flops this year. As per a report in India Today, the theatrical run ended with the film minting a mere Rs 60 crore in the domestic box office.

Now filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has opened up on the dismal box office performance of ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ and said, "Look at the box office scenario. Who would have imagined an Aamir Khan film would bomb so badly? If Aamir Khan doesn’t know how to make a hit film, then what happens to the rest?"

He further revealed how people have a shorter attention span now, thanks to accessible content on OTT platforms and YouTube. "A few weeks back, I was in Bengaluru and met an acquaintance. I asked him about his movie viewing habits – how many times he goes to the theatres in a month and how many films he watches on OTT on average. To which he said that he and his wife have stopped going to the cinemas,” he told Bollywood Hungama. 

Speaking on the OTT threat to cinemas, RGV told the portal, "...I personally feel that YouTube is a threat. It comprises so many kinds of videos, from well-packaged news to funny comedy sketches to viral videos of scandalous stuff done by politicians. Hence, the attention span is going down...But with OTT and theatres, the mindset is that you have to invest 2-3 hours of your time. That kind of attention is going to keep decreasing in the future."

He signed off by saying that with a mindset where a viewer's attention span is decreasing and he/she feels the absence of a remote control where they can just go off and later resume watching a movie/series is what has resulted in the poor box office performance of films in recent times.