Director Nitesh Tiwari, who has worked with A-list actors including Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan, has expressed his sorrow at how a movie’s budget is decided.
“It is an unfortunate scenario in our country that the film’s budget is decided not on the basis of the script but on the basis of who is starring in it,” Tiwari said during a panel discussion on the position of children’s films in India and the way forward at the ongoing 48th International Film Festival of India here on Wednesday.
“A same script with a bigger star will have a higher production budget but the same script with a so-called lesser known star, would have lesser budget. Because producers in their heads think about the market recovery,” he added.
The director, whose movie credits include Dangal, Chillar Party and Bhoothnath Returns, said there are two reasons for the death of good children’s films.
“There are two big problems as to why children’s films are not being made. One is commercial point of view, which is the producers and inclination to make it [commercially successful]. The other thing, which I think is a bigger problem, is from [a] creative point of view.
“There aren’t too many people who want to make children’s film,” he said. He recalled that no director wanted to take on Chillar Party.
“We [Vikas Bahl and he] were reluctant directors. We never wanted to be directors. We had to make it because we were so much in love with Chillar Party,” added Tiwari.
The director added: “It also comes down to the commerce of it. Unless and until you have many examples of children films, we won’t have many producers coming to back the projects.”
But he has a solution.
“This does not mean that we should not make children’s films[s]. If a star starts acting and voluntarily saying, Okay I am willing to do a children’s film in two years’ like Mr. India and Krrish. There can be more but bigger names [have to] come forward and play a role in promoting and encouraging children’s films,” said the director.
Tiwari’s last directorial, Dangal, which was a biopic on a wrestler and how he trains his daughter to win a gold medal in wrestling, broke records not only in India but also worldwide.
And Tiwari says he is more inclined towards biopics.
“Biopics tend to inspire more. Because when people consume the biopics they feel that it happened in real life rather than a piece of fiction. So if you have the knowledge that somebody has done it, you have the feeling that I can also do it.”
Tiwari concluded the session saying: “Stories choose me and I don’t choose stories.”
