Shah Rukh Khan took time off from a party he was hosting as brand ambassador of TAG Heuer on Baga Beach to talk about India being a super power.
Looking well-toned and relaxed and in need of a hair cut in Goa, Shah Rukh Khan took time off from a party he was hosting as brand ambassador of TAG Heuer on Baga Beach to talk about India being a super power.
The first day of the New Year is as good a time as any to talk about your views on India being an emerging super power….
Look, I’m a little strange about this whole superpower thing at this point of time… Right now we are a super market... we’re not a superpower as a producer — yes may be of services but I don’t feel our products have made the mark they should. We’re not Korea, China or Japan yet.
But we are world leaders in one field — Bollywood…
I don’t want to sound pessimistic — I feel there is no cinema as great as Indian, just as I feel my son is the most beautiful son in the world — but the reality is different from what we perceive it. I’ve just spent three months in LA, London and New York and I find that our view of our cinema is a little exaggerated from reality.
But there are already signs that we’re making an international mark ‘Munnabhai MMBS’ is being made in to an international Hollywood film…
With due respect to Vinod — and I hope they don’t take it wrongly —‘Munnabhai’ was a film based on ‘Patch Adams.’ In a country producing the most or the second most number of films, there will always be that one off film. But, is one enough?
So what’s the road map to go universal?
We have to make iron and steel like Laxmi Mittal, copper like Anil Agarwal and telecom and services like Reliance to be world producers or world leaders. Our films are still a little short of the mark.
I think we need more quality control. Right now we’ve survived Hollywood but not won over it. But, we have an exclusive hold over a certain section of the audience. We can’t be proud that our films are three and a half hours long. Just as you can’t attend a black tie dinner dressed in a dhoti, unless, of course, you are Mahatma Gandhi; we have to dress up our films in the uniform of the West without allowing them to lose their identity, their culture or their songs and sell it. This is why educated filmmakers are required.
So is that the way ahead?
You have to convince Hollywood that you are bringing them a larger business. We have to be able to tell them — see if you come here, you can earn 25 million more, but the only way you can do that is to produce a film with our story but using your technology, organization and marketing.
And where do you fit in to all this.
My ambition is not to star in Hollywood films, I think that is a selfish ambition. I dream of making that one film that will cross over universally. That will open to the same numbers in Mumbai, New York, London and Beijing. And I will not rest till I have done that.
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