New Delhi:
South superstar Mahesh Babu recently hogged controversy with his ‘Bollywood can’t afford me’ statement. Mahesh Babu’s statement comes at a time when South Indian films have been establishing their dominance across the country. So much so that top three of top three highest grossing films of the year are from down South. With the recent success of Pushpa: The Rise, RRR, and KGF: Chapter 2, it is expected that more South Indian actors would love to explore the pan-India bandwagon. However, Mahesh Babu is of different view. The actor had previously, too, had explicitly denied releasing his film in Hindi. Now, when asked if he would like to do a Bollywood film, the actor didn’t hold it back and went on to say Bollywood is incapable in affording him.
Mahesh Babu’s statement has attracted mixed responses. In the latest, Ram Gopal Verma has shared his GV opinion on the same. The filmmaker suggested that the actor’s films made all the money that they did, after they were dubbed in Hindi and released.
Asked to respond to the statement that Bollywood cannot afford Mahesh Babu, Ram Gopal Varma told India Today, “It is his choice as an actor. But I honestly didn’t understand what he meant by Bollywood can’t afford him. I am still unable to figure out what he meant by that because the point is, if you see the recent South Indian films, they were dubbed and released and they made whatever money they did.”
He added, “Also, first of all, Bollywood is not a company. It is a label given by the media. An individual movie company or a production house will ask you to do a film at a particular cost, so how can he generalise Bollywood, I don’t understand that. Bollywood is not a company, so his context is not understood.”
Meanwhile, Mahesh Babu later clarified his statement in an interaction with the media and said, “I don’t need to do Hindi films. I can just do a Telugu film and it’ll get seen all over the world – that’s what’s happening right now. You’d want to be in a position to do (only) a Telugu film.”
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