'Pathaan' Director Siddharth Anand On Shah Rukh Khan's Film Being Tagged Imitation Of Hollywood

'Pathaan', film starring Shah Rukh Khan that has been running strong at the box-office, has been compared to hit Hollywood franchises such as James Bond, Mission Impossible, Fast and Furious and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But director Siddharth Anand says that he isn’t a fan of the superhero genre at all.

He told Gulf News that he has only seen a couple of Marvel movies, and that his 16-year-old son would be the one to tell him if he was coming close to stepping on somebody’s toes. 

Asked if he’s worried that his films will be called ‘paler imitations of Hollywood films’, Siddharth said, “That’s inevitable, when you make a film that’s beyond the conventions of Bollywood films. You’re instantly compared to Hollywood, which obviously has better infrastructure, better technology, and huger budgets. It will always seem like we’re trying to imitate that, but our limitations are much more. We also have ambitions, our directors have the ability to mount films, but we’re limited by reach because our films are made in one language, which is Hindi. Our revenues are directly proportional to the budgets we can afford.”

Asked if he’s worried that his films will be called ‘paler imitations of Hollywood films’, Siddharth said, “That’s inevitable, when you make a film that’s beyond the conventions of Bollywood films. You’re instantly compared to Hollywood, which obviously has better infrastructure, better technology, and huger budgets. It will always seem like we’re trying to imitate that, but our limitations are much more. We also have ambitions, our directors have the ability to mount films, but we’re limited by reach because our films are made in one language, which is Hindi. Our revenues are directly proportional to the budgets we can afford.”

Pathaan has made around Rs 350 crore domestically, and more than Rs 635 crore worldwide, emerging as the biggest Bollywood hit of the pandemic era.