Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has sharply criticized Bollywood for “failed to learn” from the success of his unreleased films such as The Kashmir Files and Kannada film Kantara. In 2022, box office returns for some big-budget movies slumped, but smaller, mostly Southern ones did well. Vivek urged Bollywood to “understand simple math”.
Referring to his two films above, as well as the Telugu film Karthikeya 2 and his R. Madhavan’s bilingual Tamil and Hindi Rocketry: The Nambi Effect, Vivek writes: , #Kantara & #Rocketry he won about 800 Cr on BO. Total cost for him to produce four films of less than 75 cr. Is Bollywood blind and deaf and stupid and not understanding and learning simple math?”
Vivek’s film, his The Kashmir Files, was made with a reported budget of around £1.5 billion. The film grew by word of mouth and worldwide he was a hit with grossing £3.41 billion. Similarly, his Karthikeya 2 starring Nikhil Siddhartha was produced on a similar budget and ultimately grossed him £120 million worldwide. Rocketry made him £50m from his reported £25m budget. Rishab Shetty’s Kantara is still in cinemas. This little film has grossed over £250 million making it the third highest grossing Kannada film of all time.