‘The Kashmir Files’ director Vivek Agnihotri slams Shah Rukh Khan & Karan Johar for making ‘PR, hype & stardom’ prevalent in Bollywood

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Vivek Agnihotri recently took a potshot at superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar. In an interview with India.com, ‘The Kashmir Files’ director said that although he is a fan of the ‘Pathaan’ superstar, he detested his “politics.” He also accused the ‘Baazigar’ actor of making “PRS, hype, glamour and stardom” more prevalent in B’town. “Do you know I am a fan of SRK? I always say there’s nobody as charismatic as him.

But I don’t like the politics of Shah Rukh Khan… it has destroyed a great institution like Bollywood. Now it’s only PR, hype, glamour, and stardom.” He also accused the ‘Om Shanti Om’ star of treating his audience as dumb and making “mediocre” films. Agnihotri also stated that a collaboration between them is unlikely as Khan will want to make a movie that will be solely focused on his character.

“If Shah Rukh Khan is willing to work my way, I have no problem. But if he is working on my film, the writer and the director will be in the foreground and he will be in the background, which he will never accept. So he will never work with me,” he told the entertainment portal.

In the same interview, the director also slammed ‘Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani’ director Karan Johar for not making films relatable to the average, middle-class viewers and straying from Indian values. “He is nurturing the star system, the studio system. He is creating and helping a system that is not letting middle-class, Hindi-speaking, Indian, raw, rooted, talented citizens thrive.

This is my complaint.” On the work front, Agnihotri is busy with his new film ‘The Vaccine War’. Starring Nana Patekar, the movie will hit the big screens on 28th September. Aside from Patekar, the movie will also feature Pallavi Joshi, Raima Sen and Anupam