26 November,2023 02:50 PM IST | Mumbai | Athulya Nambiar
Salman Khan
In the recent episode of Koffee With Karan, Varun Dhawan asked Karan Johar 'what does it take to sign Salman Khan for a film?' While he answered 'Beg Borrow Steal,' mid-day.com posed the same question to Salman Khan. While the superstar did not give a direct answer, he believes that his generation of actors are an inspiration to people and have managed to sustain in the movie business.
In a recent interaction after the success of Tiger 3, Salman Khan said, "This is the only thing (cinema) I know. However, much I know about this industry whether it is 5-10 percent, this 10 percent is 150 times more than I know about any other industry. So if I do not do this what else will I do."
Salman expressed that the industry is working hard and people are coming to watch the films. He also said that kids are getting inspired to hit the gym and getting on the right path in life. "People my age and older than me are thinking that if this person at this age has this level of witness then they feel that it is never too late. All of us have managed that. Whether it is Ajay, Akshay, Aamir, myself, Sanju, Shah Rukh, Jackie and Sunny ne toh gadar macha diya. People look up at us. Younger generation look up at us and think they have the chance to be the leading man till 60-70 which is not possible in any other place in the world. Now, a time has come that even if Sunny wants to come out of college he can manage that (laughs)," he added.
During the same interaction, Salman also spoke about his previous two films- 'Antim' and 'Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan'- not performing well at the box office. "At that point of time, nobody was going to the theatres. When the film came in at that point in time, we didn't do blockbuster pricing, we did popular prices and there is a massive difference between the two. Blockbuster prices are way higher than popular prices. On one hand, you try to do good and it affects your own numbers (at the box office) but it saves the money of the audience. Tiger had blockbuster pricing. We did not have that kind of pricing. We had Rs 250 as ticket prices. It is because people like you who do not appreciate what we do, so we will show our big figures now," he said.
However, Salman Khan also feels that it is the timing of 'Antim' and 'Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan's release that did not work in their favour. "If KBKJ would have released today, the numbers would been a lot more. The PVR guys told me that people were not coming to theatres. There were only 25-30 percent of people coming to theatres and far less in the mall," he added.