During the two years when the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak, there was a looming crisis over the Indian film industry with several Bollywood films with A-list stars failing to impress both the audience and the critics. But come 2023, Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham’s spy drama ‘Pathaan’ and managed to cross more than Rs 1000 crore at the worldwide box office. The film’s success clearly was enough to project that the Bollywood slump was a temporary phase, and the Hindi film industry is all set to bounce back again.
Vikrant Massey, who recently starred in Disney+Hotstar’s ‘Gaslight’ with Sara Ali Khan and Chitrangda Singh, has now weighed in on Bollywood's much-talked slump. In an interview with Gurpreet Kaur of Outlook India, the actor opined that 'good content’ is still working and none of his producers have really faced any losses.
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“The noise, the cacophony, especially because of social media, is unfortunate. Social media has become the primary source of news for most people now. Not at the cost of sounding pompous, I don’t know what slump people are talking about. I am doing four films a year, sometimes five. I am working with the best technicians in the country, none of my producers have suffered losses and I can proudly say that,” Vikrant Said.
Nonetheless, with the theatres shut during the second wave of Covid, the audience was pushed to the OTT platforms. Adding how the audiences’ taste has changed and artists should adapt to it, Vikrant maintained, “You cannot deny the fact that post the pandemic, the whole business scenario has changed, but that is how we transition. And we all should be accepting of it. The audiences too have adapted. Our lives, in the business of entertainment, are dependent on people, and if people now are content with watching content on their phones, so be it. My priority has always been to go out and tell a good story, and present myself as an actor who is capable of doing certain things. We are living in the age of quality content, whatever medium you cater to. I hope I continue to do so.”
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The actor has an interesting lineup of films ahead. Talking about his upcoming projects, Vikrant signed off by saying, “My calendar year began with ‘Gaslight’. There is ‘Mumbaikar’ with Vijay Sethupathi, I am really looking forward to that. Then I have ‘Sector 36’ that’s with Dinesh Vijan’s Maddock Films. I also have ‘Blackout’, an out-an-out comedy, which will be out in the third quarter of the year. I also have ‘12th fail’, a Vidhu Vinod Chopra film, it is a biopic and based on the book of the same name. Then there is ‘Phir Aayi Haseen Dilruba’.”
