How different is the Indian film industry today?
When I started 27 years ago, box office was the only measure of a film’s success. Today, entertainment products can be supplied to customers through various other outlets too including personal computers. Thanks to piracy, the common man today has easy access to foreign films. He need not patronise the expensive cinema halls of today which are sometimes beyond his means. These cinema houses cater to the sensibilities of only the upper class. The man on the street does not care about the viewing experience, the audio and the visual effects or a cinema hall’s plush interiors. But, piracy means loss of revenue to the film industry. What is your argument? You cannot question piracy. Today, entertainment is the opium of the masses and not religion. Copyright laws and policing will not work. What trends do you see in the Indian entertainment industry? When television arrived on the scene, I had said that cinema is an ageing whore and TV is the new bitch in town. Movies indeed have lost their
