Filmmaker Abhishek Sharma questioned the originality of Bollywood. The filmmaker blamed the term Bollywood for being derived from Hollywood as well as not original. He shot to fame with his first film, Tere Bin Laden in 2010. Abhishek’s recent film was the Akshay Kumar starrer Ram Setu.

Abhishek spoke during the in-conversation session on ‘Corporate Culture in Film Industry’ at the ongoing International Film Festival of India in Goa. Filmmakers Anees Bazmee, Vikas Bahl and Uunchai producer Mahaveer Jain were present for the session at IFFI 2022. He said, “Corporatisation is the best thing that happened to the industry because at least cheques are getting encashed now.”

He added, “Pehle kaha se paisa ata tha aur kaise ata hai (The kind of money that came in films and how it came)….we know. That change is good. Corporatisation has helped cleanse the money being invested in films.”

Abhishek also spoke about the changes that came at the ad labs after Anil Ambani’s Reliance came aboard. It was the first time, in early 2006, that they offered a star a double-digit crore. Today, they talk about whether stars should take a cut.

He concluded, “Bollywood must be some journalist’s joke that remained. If the name is a mimicry of something else, how can you expect them to be original? The suits are here to pay up but are you ready to be creative enough? Are we truly an organic industry? We need to introspect. We need to come together keeping aside personal profit and loss and think about the industry as a whole.”