Crowd chants Rohit Shetty’s name as he passionately defends Bollywood: ‘Ek saal kharab gaya aur aap palti maar rahe ho?’

Rohit Shetty delivered a passionate defence of Bollywood and his colleagues in the film industry at a recent panel discussion. Ahead of the release of their film Cirkus, Rohit and his crew–Ranveer Singh, Pooja Hegde, and Varun Sharma–appeared for the promotions of a film and he was asked about the state of the Hindi film industry.

Even as full attendance was allowed in film theatres this year, many Hindi films failed to click with the audience. Meanwhile, a few Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam movies saw an unprecedented turnout even in the Hindi belt. However, Rohit doesn’t see it as a bad omen for Hindi films. In a session with Lallantop, he talked about the same.

Talking about his film Sooryavanshi, which released late last year and with an occupancy of 50% in theatres, he said it collected ₹196 crore at the box office. Had it been released at 100% capacity, it could have collected more than ₹350 crore. “Sooryavanshi was released, and at the beginning of this year, films like The Kashmir Files and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 worked well. Drishyam 2 has done well recently. It’s not like our films aren’t working. Gangubai Kathiawadi did really well,” he said and added that he listed one successful Hindi movie of the year for every successful regional movie. Rohit added, “Ek saal kharab gaya aur aap palti maar rahe ho (We had one bad year and you are turning your backs on us)?”

Rohit passionately also listed all the biggest hits that Bollywood has delivered over the years such as Sholay, Hum Aapke Hain Koun, Maine Pyaar Kiya, Munnabhai MBBS, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Hera Pheri to his own Singhan, Golmaal and Sooryavanshi. He said that it was Bollywood that made all these movies too. At this, the audience at the event started chanting his name and even Ranveer got excited at how well Rohit defended the Hindi film industry.

Rohit told the interviewer, “Don’t mind it madam but rats are the first ones to jump ship when it sinks.”

Cirkus releases on December 23 and also stars Jacqueline Fernandez and others.