Big commercial entertainers will never go out of style: Kriti Sanon

By PTI

MUMBAI: Actor Kriti Sanon says she doesn’t believe that Bollywood has reduced making larger-than-life ‘masala’ entertainers as it is an extremely audience-friendly genre that ensures big box office pull.

According to Sanon, the perception that Hindi cinema has distanced itself from commercial potboilers became stronger in the last two years when Bollywood didn’t witness any major theatrical release due to the pandemic.

Her latest action-comedy “Bachchhan Paandey”, fronted by Akshay Kumar, is now being billed by the trade as the film which will revive the big scale Hindi movie genre.

“I don’t think we have stopped making those big, commercial entertainers, it is just that we haven’t had those many releases. There is a lineup of films, all blockbuster potential, waiting to come. We feel like that because in that short period of time, few South films that came and made a mark, which was fantastic.”

“These films do really well, they clock in huge numbers as there is a huge audience for it. So, as long as the audience is there, these films won’t ever go out of style, they will keep getting made,” Sanon told PTI.

While Bollywood just had one bonafide hit last year, the big scale actioner “Sooryavanshi” also headlined by Kumar, Tamil and Telugu films saw the humongous success of “Master” and “Pushpa”.

Within three months, several big ticket films from South have already released, including “Valimai”, “Bheemla Nayak”, “Radhe Shyam”.

Next in the queue are SS Rajamouli’s “RRR”, set to release on March 25, and much-awaited “KGF Chapter 2”.

The 31-year-old actor said the market has opened for all films in India and she doesn’t view it as several industries “competing” with each other.

“It is a healthy time for all. Today a lot of bilingual, trilingual films are being made which earlier wasn’t the case. Technicians would still work across the industries, many of them during my first film were from the South. But for actors it’s happening now, which is great,” she added.

In “Bachchhan Paandey”, Sanon plays Myra, a budding director who decides to document the life of the titular, dreaded gangster with the help of her friend, played by actor Arshad Warsi.

The actor said she was surprised how neatly the Farhad Samji directorial packaged all the elements of a quintessential Hindi entertainer.

“It had all the elements, action, comedy, drama, thrill which worked for me. It is smartly done and within that world, I feature as this urban girl, a role I hadn’t played in a while. She is a gutsy girl who enters this poles-apart world to make a film on a gangster who can kill her any moment. I found that hook very interesting.”

“What also worked for me was that my chemistry with Akshay in the film is different from what we had done in ‘Housefull 4’, it is an entirely new space so there was a chance to do something I hadn’t done before,” she added.

Produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, “Bachchhan Paandey” also stars Jacqueline Fernandez.