Siddharth Roy Kapur, Founder & MD (Roy Kapur Films), And President (Producers Guild Of India) On Content Disruption In Bollywood And His Personal Experiences.
A lot of us in the content business are looking for audiences to tell us what to do right now considering that theatres have been running empty for the last few months.
My ‘disruption’ story – I came from a structured environment. I worked at Procter & Gamble, Star TV, I worked in Star Hong Kong for a few years. When Ronnie Screwvala had UTV, he called me and asked if I would like to head marketing for a movie studio he was setting up. I was on the next flight to Bombay.
My first meeting was with an old-school film producer. I had been out for a few years, used to a certain way of dealing with people but I quickly had to learn the ropes of the film industry around India and around the world. It is entertaining but can also throw you off your feet.
I went to meet this producer early one morning in Juhu and there were Hummers parked outside with guards and whatnot. I began to wonder whether I was entering a fort or meeting a movie producer. There were CCTV cameras all over inside. Inside, I walked up stairs and went into a massive room. A theme from the Godfather movie was playing in the background at 9 am! There were lithographs of Robert de Niro and Al Pacino on the left and on the right were large cut-outs of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
There was a huge desk like 20s’ style. The man asked me to sit down and continued to furiously look into the cameras that had CCTV footage from around the house being live relayed to him. His eyes kept darting towards the TV. You can imagine my situation. This was 2005, he was a lovely man but he was from another time. That has been changed considerably. These species of producers have sort of become extinct, but you are in a world of people with massive egos and high creativity. They have talent but need to be handled with kid gloves. There is no right or wrong, everything is subjective.
I had grown up in Cuffe Parade, studied in GD Somani and done theatre all through my life but it was the movies I was obsessed with. I grew up not being able to see the pathway to enter the industry because if you weren’t from the industry there wasn’t really a path in. I was in stage all my life doing theatre, I did a show in which Sabira (Merchant) was obviously a star and I was a little minion running around to fix her light fixatures and get the show done. It was fun. But there came a time in my late teens when I had to take a call between taking the safe route and doing an MBA or hanging around Prithvi Theatre waiting to be discovered. I decided upon the former and became a good boy. I joined Procter & Gamble, and marketed Vicks and Aerial for a few years. I loved the company and people but left to find my way to media. I moved to Star TV which was on the cusp of launching the first KBC and the K shows that came along with it. So, you can hold me mildly responsible for some of that. But that was again a disruptive time in media and entertainment because before that, TV was a hybrid of English and Hindi channels figuring out what to do. The era of DD was over but satellite hadn’t figure out the model that would go on a mass basis and be able to take over the entire country.
I am happy that I was a part of the small journey where Star Plus was able to bring the biggest icons of cinema on television silver screen. We were shocked when Sameer Nair began pursuing Amitabh Bachchan for a TV show and we were shocked when it happened. Ekta Kapoor came in with the K shows and that was a journey of Star. I was then marketing for 5 years for Star Hong Kong and Dubai. I had done a summer internship with UTV back then when I was in Sydenham. And I hadn’t been in touch with Ronnie Screwvala since then, and he called me in 2005. He had greenlit a film called Rang De Basanti with Aamir khan and it was a big bet and he asked if I would like to join him. I did and my dreams were coming true. That was the start of my journey where a bunch of outsiders like us were able to come in and disrupt what was going on.
We strategised about adopting the director route rather than actor route because actors tended to do films only with people they had relations with. Their fathers had worked together, their grandfathers had worked together. But with Ronnie, we took a bet on the directors and we said Rakesh Mehra who did a film called Aks, had a wonderful script of today’s generation fighting for a freedom in today’s world. That is when Rang De Bansanti was born. It was a big bet to take. It was a big leap of faith but thankfully it paid off. We also released Khosla Ka Ghosla that same year. We wanted people to know that you can bet on us because we are going to be marketing the hell out of the movies we make with you and we can take a small film like Khosla Ka Ghosla and we can market it the way a big film would be marketed. That helped us make the breakthrough that we needed to sit at the same table as the big boys and play the game. Thus began the journey.
In those early years of UTV, there was so much disruption. We made Dev D, we had Anurag Kashyap coming into the conference room and he had just made No Smoking which had done pretty bad at the box office and he was in depression but he had this script and he wanted to narrate it to us. He gave this narration which half the room hated and half the room loved but that actually made us realise that this was something that would create a conversation. It was going to make people have an opinion and say they loved it or hated it. That is how Dev D was made. Films like A Wednesday, Paan Singh Tomar are the movies we backed at that time that helped us to change the narrative.
If I look back at what was happening in the larger scheme of things within the theatrical business, multiplexes had come in early 2000s and brought back a whole generation of people who had gone off the theatre. In the ’90s, people decided to sit at home with their DVDs but with multiplexes, people started coming in and that is when the content we were backing at UTV could actually be thrown into the mix and work.
Look at the irony of what is happening today. We have the same audiences who had decided to not to go back to the cinemas. The last two years have been disruptive in terms of change of habit that has happened within all of us and that is why we are facing a sort of crisis in entertainment throughout the world. Attention spans have shortened, the device in our hand has become a source of massive entertainment from reels to YouTube, social media. You can be entertained without going for a theatrical experience. And, whether we like it or not, it is a massive commitment to make to book those tickets, get into the car, go to the theatre, wait into the line, wait 20 minutes for the ads, 20 mins for the interval and another 2 and half hours for the movie. I think it weighs on us that entire decision and that is what we as an industry are grappling right now.
So, what are the movies that are going to bring you as audiences back into the cinema hall? Hollywood has the Marvel series. In India, we haven’t been able to invest in those massive IPs that are able to bring the audiences into theatres. Also, people are exposed to content all around the world and stars from the south are now as popular as stars from the north. We are actually victims of our own success because Hindi cinema has to cater to multiple states and languages. Whereas, in south, if you are making a Telugu film, you need to be true to those people of one particular state and you are making that film with complete conviction and audience. Hindi film cinema is going through a time where it is not sure what it should be making, and directors are floundering.
Despite this, we needed this churn and experience. There was a certain pretence and indulgence that you knew that non-theatrical sales will take care of your cost and therefore people have now become more circumspect for what they want to make for the cinema experience. I am literally talking to you at a time when we have a very big theatrical release of Brahmastra and for the first time as an industry, we are quite transparent. No one wants anyone else’s movie to work right but, in this case, the entire industry is hoping that Brahmastra works because that will take the entire sentiment up again. So, I think this is one rare time when everyone is rooting for the movie and that I have never seen happening before.
We haven’t really had that one big film or a series out of India that has been able to go out in the world. You had a Money Heist, A Squid Game, and other countries actually being able to take their content to world. We haven’t had that yet. We had Delhi Crime win an Emmy but that was a more critical appreciation than a commercial victory. The show was able to go everywhere. I think that is the next Holy Grail for India because that show or movie can come from anywhere. We need to reach out more. I hope that the next Squid Game or Money Heist happens out of India and of course I hope I make it.
RAPID FIRE
[Siddharth – everyone is doing Koffee with Karan now!]
What are you most grateful for in this whole world?
My family.
If you had to be a Disney character, who would it be?
Baloo the bear.
What chore do you absolutely despise doing?
Getting into the kitchen to do anything really.
If you could learn any language in a week, which is the one you would want to learn?
Russian. To figure out what the hell is going on.
If you could have unlimited supply of one thing, what would that be?
Oscars.
A person who inspires you the most?
My grandfather, my mum’s dad.
If your life was a story, what would it be titled?
The Anarchy.
Coincidence or fate?
Coincidence.
Are you more analytical or creative?
A little bit of both but may be 55 analytical and 45 creatives.
Win the lottery or wake up super fit?
Wake up super fit because I have never woken up that way in my entire life.
Good glass of wine or favourite chocolate?
Liqueur chocolate. Best of both.
Optimist or realist?
Optimist.
Have more time or have more money?
More time
Win a close game in favourite sport or win an award?
Win an award.
Organised to smallest detail or controlled chaos?
Controlled chaos.
Which is the one habit that has changed your life?
Making lists.
Name a book or movie that had an impact on you.
Sholay. I used to go every week.
What is your favourite memory of Mumbai?
Just here, going and feeding the pigeons when I was a toddler.
We all have seen the Hindi movie struggling quite a bit but the south films are also hero-centric like the Hindi movies. We have KGF, RRR, Vikram doing fabulously well while here Laal Singh Chadda is tanked. What do you think is the problems?
So, the south celebrates their hero a lot more than here. Like we did in the ’80s, and before, there is a certain fetishising of the hero where everything is in slow motion and it seems to be what mass audience today wants more. They want you to celebrate the hero. I don’t see a south Indian actor doing a Laal Singh Chadda, they will not put themselves to be in position seeming to be mentally challenged on the screen unless it is a small art house film. Again, this is 2020 hindsight. The directors here find it a little cheesy to do that and treat our hero like that.
Jug Jug Jeeyo did very well, Laal Singh Chadda and Raksha Bandhan came at the same time. Why are you awaiting Brahmastra over these three films?
Actually, unfortunately nothing has worked out the way we wanted it to other than Bhool Bhulaiyya and Gangubai Kathiawadi. In a whole year, that is a very pathetic report card for the industry. lSC didn’t work, Jug Jug Jeeyo worked but most people think that if it would have released before pandemic, it would have done double the business. So, Brahmastra feels like a litmus test where if we make a film of that scale, are people going to come and watch it or is something fundamentally broken in Hindi cinema? My hope is the former.
How do we address the health and hygiene issue at the theatres?
Cinema owners have now taken every precaution possible. They have air filtrations set up and it hasn’t really been a hot spot. Health is not a concern anymore in the top chains at least.
One of the very big issues in the industry has been piracy, is it still an issue?
It is a massive concern. Coupled with the fact of OTT release in 4 weeks after the pandemic. So, films are available on the OTT which makes the audience think why do we need to go to cinema. But the thing is the problem has not changed, the windowing from theatrical to OTT has changed. We have gone to 8 weeks now.
Why can’t we reduce the duration of the movies to a 2 hour 10 minutes, I love that oversees when I go to watch a movie, there is no intermission. Can Bollywood not do that?
It is happening, but not soon. It needs to be slashed down. The revenue model is based on the concessions, the popcorns and food and that is the revenue that goes straight to the bottom line. In the interest of having time to sell that, they need an intermission. Our culture is still not to stock up before the movie. It is a hard call for theatres to change that. We might make a movie without an interval but they would just stop it midway like you might have seen in the Marvel movies. You can’t blame them because they have been struggling for last two years. But this change can happen a bit later.
Going forward, with so many options and channels, do you think they will remain or merge in some technology or evolve?
We do tend to think about this a lot because if people are getting entertained with TikToks and reels and be able to watch a series, is the concept of a movie outdated now? We ask his question a lot, there is no answer right now because it is an art form at the end of the day. What will happen is it will become a rare experience like the opera or theatres where cinema is something you go for to the theatres. We have to be prepared for it.
Do you think songs are equally important aspect of the movie?
We have become a little apologetic, the new gen is averse to that because they consider it old school and cheesy. The OST is become more common so that the characters don’t lip-sync while in south they enjoy doing that. So, that is why there is disruption because film makers are confused on what they should be.
What do you look for in the script?
I see if it moved me. Then comes the commercials, budget, the genre and all thoughts of producers. But the first instinct is whether it moved me and whether I will focus a year and a half on that film.
I feel the emphasis on writing is lacking. There are a lot of movies that you can’t sit through, so, how are you looking at the writers medium?
The structured way of training the writers is missing in our country. You are right because that is the raw material where you extract the movies or series. The change is happening, but slowly.
