Vivek Agnihotri lauds Shah Rukh Khan for Pathaan success, slams boycott calls: ‘Some credit should also go to people…’

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri recently heaped praises on Shah Rukh Khan after the massive success of his film Pathaan. Days after criticising the film song Besharam Rang which created a controversy ahead of the release, the Kashmir Files director now slammed those who protested against the film. A video of Vivek’s interview landed on Reddit and left users with mixed thoughts. Also read: After Vivek Agnihotri’s reaction to Pathaan song Besharam Rang, Twitter reminds him of his ‘erotic thriller’ Hate Story

Last year, Vivek claimed on Twitter that he received threats over his comments on Besharam Rang. He had shared a video criticising the song which featured Deepika and Shah Rukh romancing in Spain. He had tweeted, “WARNING… video against Bollywood. Don’t watch it if you are a ‘secular’.” After the release of Besharam Rang, some people criticised the lyrics as well as the costumes in the song. A few of them also called for a boycott of the film.

Talking about the film now, Vivek Agnihotri said during The Carvaka Podcast, “Pathaan worked purely because of the charisma and fan following of Shah Rukh, the way he marketed it and the way he took it on his shoulders that ‘it is my film and I am responsible for it’, which is pretty good.”

“I also think that some credit should also go to people who were making stupid statements against the film and people who were unnecessarily protesting and asking for boycott. These are different people from regular ‘boycott Bollywood gang’. There is one kind that is always saying ‘boycott Bollywood’ for everything for many years. These were new players in the market and there was no need for them to do this. There were some violent factors who were saying we will burn this and burn that and that, I think, also contributed to this. And of course, our media channels,” he added.

Reacting to the Vivek’s words, a user wrote, “Wow wow wow….how the turntables.” “If you look at his earlier tweets, he is a hypocritical opportunist who changes tunes regularly nothing surprising,” added another user. Someone else also said, “I have absolute disregard for people who can’t even stay true to their words.”

Directed by Siddharth Anand, Pathaan has become the fifth highest grossing Indian film in history after beating Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015)and Aamir Khan’s Secret Superstar (2017). The film currently stands at a gross worldwide collection of ₹946 crore, as per Yash Raj Films who backed it. It released on January 25.