Aamir Khan recently spoke about the need for better theatrical infrastructure in India, citing Dhurandhar as an example. The Ranveer Singh starrer, directed by Aditya Dhar, broke several records at the box office and emerged as a blockbuster. However, Khan felt that there was still space for the film to get more numbers.
In a conversation with Variety India, he said, “India’s a huge country; it’s like a continent, it’s massive, and each state has its own language, its own culture, its own films. So, I really feel that in a country like India, we need many more cinema halls, more outlets, so that we can reach a lot more people. If you want to compete with China, for example, they have, I think, one lakh screens.”
He continued, “We are at 9,000 screens. What is the comparison? We are one-tenth their size in outlets. Which is why one big film in China does huge business; it does two billion US dollars, just in China, not in the rest of the world. Just in China, big films do that kind of business. The big films over there do business worth billions of dollars. I am talking of US dollars. So, when we increase our number of screens, you’ll see the business expand at the grassroots level. The base of your pyramid will go wide.”
Using Dhurandhar as an example, the actor further explained that if the film had been released on 15,000 screens instead of 5,000, it would have performed even better than it did. “Let’s take the example of Dhurandhar, which has done around Rs 1,000 crore. Now, imagine if it had been released not on 5,000 screens but on 15,000 screens. Massive! So, this is what I’m trying to say. The real change will come when the number of screens goes up, because there are so many districts in India right now that don’t have a single screen,” the actor concluded.
Meanwhile, the team of Dhurandhar is gearing up for the release of the second part, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, which will hit the theatres on March 19. Besides Ranveer, the film also stars Arjun Rampal, Akshaye Khanna, Danish Pandor, Sara Arjun, Rakesh Bedi, Sanjay Dutt and R Madhavan, among others.
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