Vivek Agnihotri calls Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan, Jawan ‘superficial’: ‘Woh action ke level par theek hai lekin…’

Vivek Agnihotri’s much-awaited movie The Vaccine War recently hit the theatres and has been getting positive response from the audience. Recently, in an interview, the filmmaker talked about Shah Rukh Khan’s latest releases Pathaan and Jawan, and called them ‘superficial’. 

In a recent conversation with Siddharth Kannan, Vivek Agnihotri talked about Shah Rukh Khan’s latest releases and said, “I think his recent films are very superficial. He can do far better than that.” When asked specifically if he was referring to Pathaan and Jawan, the filmmaker said, “Haan jo bhi aai hai unke films (Whichever films have been released). Those that I have watched, I found them very superficial. They are okay at the level of an action film but to present them as a standard of filmmaking and that this is the end of show business, I don’t agree with that. Then I think it’s a psycho frenzy. I have a problem with that.” 

The filmmaker also addressed the video of him speaking about Shah Rukh Khan greeting with Salaam and not namaste from an old podcast that went viral. The filmmaker explained that the video was actually edited and further claimed, “The trolls and bots created by Shah Rukh Khan’s social media agency, have decided to attack Vivek Agnihotri. They have a feeling that I may…but I always praise him.” 

Shah Rukh Khan made a stellar comeback on the big screen with Pathaan which went on to be the highest-grossing film of the year by collecting over Rs 1000 crore at the box office worldwide. However, the actor broke his own record as his recent release has crossed Pathaan’s all-time collection and collected Rs 1070 crore worldwide within a month. 

Shah Rukh Khan is now awaiting the release of his upcoming movie Dunki which also stars Taapsee Pannu. The film marks the actor’s collaboration with Rajkumar Hirani for the very first time and is scheduled to hit the theatres on December 22. The film is set to clash with Prabhas’ Salaar. 

The Vaccine War is helmed by Vivek Agnihotri and produced by Pallavi Joshi and Abhishek Agarwal. The film shows the effort and struggles of Indian scientists who went behind the making of India’s own vaccine. Touted as a true story, the film stars Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Nana Patekar, and Raima Sen among others in key roles and is garnering positive response from the audience.

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