Amitabh Bachchan was trying to bring home the point that in those days it was possible for a film to succeed commercially without even promotions.
By Rakesh Raman
Top Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan has gone nostalgic, as he has been repeatedly comparing the olden days of India’s Bombay-based film industry with the contemporary period.
Recalling the old films in which he had worked in the 1980s, Bachchan tweeted today that ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ had run for 25 weeks in 25 theatres of Mumbai.
He also counted 6 other films released in 1982 in which he had worked and those were highly successful at the box office. They included ‘Satte Pe Satta’, ‘Shakti’, ‘Bemisal’, ‘Namak Halal’, ‘Khuddar’, and ‘DeshPremi’.
T 2782 – ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ ran 25 weeks in 25 theatres in one city, Mumbai.
6 films of mine released 1982 – ‘Satte pe Satta’, ‘Shakti’, ‘Bemisal’, ‘NamakHalal’, ‘Khuddar’, & ‘DeshPremi’ .. 6 films in 1 year .. AND in 3 of these films I played a double role !
क्या दिन थे 🌹 pic.twitter.com/2v762mVTNT— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) April 22, 2018
“क्या दिन थे!” Bachchan exclaimed.
In fact, he was trying to bring home the point that in those days it was possible for a film to succeed commercially without even promotions.
[ Also Read: How Amitabh Bachchan Stays Younger Than the Young ]
The actor was referring to his last week’s experience when he had spent the entire day on the promotion of ‘102 Not Out‘ an upcoming film in which he has played the role of a 102-year-old man.
T 2780 – An entire day in promoting film ‘102 Not Out’ .. in our time we never even talked about promotions leave alone do it .. just a single page paper ad., would come and that is all .. and films ran for 50-100 weeks ! ..
वो भी क्या दिन थे !! pic.twitter.com/oIp1XidW0s— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) April 20, 2018
“An entire day in promoting film ‘102 Not Out’. In our times, we never even talked about promotions, let alone do it. Just a single-page newspaper ad would come; and that is all. Those films ran for 50-100 weeks! वो भी क्या दिन थे !!” Bachchan said without explicitly cursing the exaggerated hype around films these days.
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It is not only about marketing and promotions of films. Bachchan, 76, also is concerned about the evolution in the film-making process, as it is fast moving from the analog to digital systems.
While participating in a recent film event, he said that “the word film has suddenly lost its charm; for there does not seem to be any need to shoot films on film. It’s all digital now.”
He added that “it was known as the ‘film industry’ they were known as ‘film stars’. So in the complete absence of that medium and that product, it would be quite in order to call ourselves ‘robotic genes’.”
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.
