Shah Rukh Khan is not only a formidable actor but has acumen for business few in Bollywood can dream of. In an interview with Economic Times recently, SRK sat down to talk the changing ways of viewing content and among other things, Hollywood.
Speaking about the business of entertainment, SRK noted in the interview: “Netflix and all other platforms are here to stay. It gives an opportunity to a lot of youngsters who didn’t know where to take their small films. So my deal with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and chief content officer Ted Sarandos is not just on paper. I’ll try and make stuff for you for which I can’t find a theatre and I am non-self-obsessed to know that certain films don’t need to be in the theatre. Theatres will also change. It will perhaps be more like Broadway where movies will play for six months. It will be a 360-degree experience, there will be 3D and holographic stuff and more interaction. It will be community viewing, like watching a game, like going to a theme park.”
When asked about going to Hollywood particularly since his colleagues such as Priyanka Chopra have made that crossover, SRK responded: “They have to look at me; I can’t look at them. I look at the moon every day but I don’t reach for it. It started with Om Puri ji and now Priyanka, Irrfan and so many others are doing it. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is getting some films. Amit ji (Amitabh Bachchan) has done some, Anupam Kher too has and it’s wonderful. But I have never been offered an opportunity. I don’t even know if I am good enough to do it — I think my English is a little weak (smiles).
My own attempt is to make Indian films watched at that level. Again, not taking away from the greatness of anything that others have achieved, I’d like Tom Cruise to say one day that ‘I’ve been given a chance in a Hindi film’. Man, that will be wonderful. Christopher Nolan would say that there is a producer in India who wants him to make a film. Inshallah, that will happen.”
