Amol Palekar says Hindi cinema should stop equating good films with box office numbers

Mumbai, Expressing his concern over the declining state of Hindi films, veteran actor-filmmaker Amol Palekar on Friday said there’s a need to rethink the criteria for defining a “good” film, which shouldn't always be defined by how much money it has earned at the box office.

He cited the recently released film “The Mehta Boys”, directed by Boman Irani, as an example of the type of heartfelt storytelling that is lacking in contemporary Hindi cinema.

“A film is more than the money that it has earned. Why do we associate good movies with their business? Is our understanding limited to the business a movie makes? We are often told that a film earned Rs. 400 or 500 crores but a good film should not be about how much it has earned at the box office,” Palekar said on day one of ABP Network’s Ideas of India 2025 when asked about the decline of Hindi cinema.

According to Palekar, "The Mehta Boys" is similar to the kind of films that were made in his era.

"I feel we are unable to make such beautiful films today, and we rather make only one kind of factory churn out kind of films,” Palekar said.

He also lamented the hype surrounding massive blockbusters like "Baahubali" and "RRR," while smaller films with substantial content often fade into the background.

“An OTT platform made a serial based on a well-known writer from the Malayalam industry named, Vasudevan Nair, and it featured all the top stars including Mammootty, Mohanlal and many others, and it was presented by Kamal Haasan. If a project like this is being made in the South, we must talk about it but we only talk about ‘Baahubali’ and ‘RRR’,” Palekar added.

While acknowledging the advent of AI in the entertainment industry, the 80-year-old cinema icon asserted that technology cannot replace human creativity.

“AI is another step or big jump for the industry. A noted musician Zakir Hussain passed away recently, his tabla and the sound he created, can easily be recreated and reproduced through AI, but still, the tabla played by him will have a human effect. AI is created by a human being but it can’t replace human talent.”

On a query about movies not capturing important social issues, Palekar said it’s the responsibility of everyone including media to talk about that.

“Can the media not touch upon these topics? More than 90 per cent of the news on TV channels is political as if there’s nothing else than politics in our lives. Why? We can talk about all these issues, or other things like art, painting, and literature that will help us become better human beings. But instead of that, we talk about politics.”

As a director, Palekar said his films always reflect social issues like "Dhoosar", which revolved around Alzheimer's even though he, sometimes, faced backlash for covering these topics in his movies.

He cited the example of two of his films, “Thang” and “Daayraa” which were not released in India primarily because they were dealing with the sensitive subjects like same-sex relationships and trans people, respectively.

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