South vs Bollywood: Hindi viewing audience is alive, says Arjun Kapoor

New Delhi, July 15:  At a time when regional cinema such as the 'Baahubali' franchise and more recently 'Pushpa: The Rise', the 'KGF' franchise and 'RRR' are leaving Hindi films far behind in the competition at the box-office, Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor asserts that the Hindi viewing audience still exists as these films along with Hollywood movies are dubbed in Hindi.

Asked according to him what or where is Hindi cinema going wrong as Bollywood movies are not making it as big as films from the south, Arjun in a conversation with IANS said: "The films that are being dubbed and are coming out in Hindi at the end of the day that is a big sign. English films that come they get dubbed... That is a big sign that the Hindi viewing audience is existing. They are alive."

He minces no words when he says it is an "assessment that some of the Hindi films have not panned"

Arjun added: "But you have to realise these films started say in 2019 and 2020 before the pandemic hit... A lot of them have been released now. We are also learning... It's a phase where there is a new audience, taste palate that has come through. We are also adapting and learning. We have to go back to basics and start appreciating our mainstream audiences..."

"We somewhere got lost because we were appealing to the multiplex audiences pre-pandemic and the digital audience post-pandemic."

The 37-year-old, who started as an assistant director in the 2003 film 'Kal Ho Naa Ho', shared that the "mainstream audience will always be the bread and butter of this industry."

"There is no harm sometimes to taking a step back to take two steps forward because you can assess, observe and learn. Unfortunate that the films did not work the way they should have and the next 6-8 months we have to be very patient... because there is phase and a cycle..."

He added: "If we had managed to understand the multiplex audience and delivered films to them pre-pandemic then today the belief has to be to learn and adapt to the new age belief, through process of the audiences and again start delivering... but patience is needed and we all need to be students and learn from the audience that is our biggest teacher."

Arjun currently awaits the release of his upcoming film 'Ek Villain Returns'. He also has 'Kuttey' and 'The LadyKiller'.