R Balki calls recent Bollywood blockbusters 'the worst' and 'boring': 'They're dull and just a marketing gimmick to manipulate audience'

Filmmaker R Balki has been very vocal about Bollywood cinema lately, terming several of the recent blockbusters as "the worst" and "boring."

Speaking during a fireside chat titled "What on Earth Is Wrong with Advertising and Cinema" at MIT World Peace University in Pune, Balki shared his views on the decline in the entertainment value of modern films.

He feels these films lack the excitement of traditional "masala, paisa vasool" cinema that audiences once cherished for its engaging storytelling and larger-than life appeal.

Balki criticized these movies not just on the artistic and intellectual lacks but also on how they fall short of the entertainment that fans go for. He added that though they were not appealing, most of these movies continue breaking records at the box offices. "It's become like a project. There's an economics associated with that stuff," he said, explaining how heavy marketing campaigns often manipulate audience perception and drive box-office success. Balki feels that by the time the audience realizes the film isn't as good as advertised it has already made its money.

He went on to discuss the shift in the film landscape and the waning interest of the audience. He pointed to the reason being that there is just too much content these days, which has resulted in the attention of the audience being split across multiple fronts. The fact that some movies can still fill theaters notwithstanding, Balki says that the interest in cinema like that in the past is gone.

He discussed the fact that the way people are consuming content has changed, making it rather difficult to replicate at the cinemas the same excitement and relationship that Bollywood once commanded.