“Why is Bollywood failing at the box office?” is a question that echoes in every corner of the Hindi film industry today. Barring a few hits— one can count on their fingertips— Bollywood continues to struggle to get on its feet after suffering the Covid-19-caused blow five years ago. Inadvertently, it has become a talking point at the ongoing WAVES Summit, where superstars and producers Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan have shared solutions to the problem.

Aamir Khan bats for more theatres

A day after Shah Rukh called for an increase in the number of cinema halls in India, Aamir broke down how it’s unfortunate that for a hugely populated country like India, there were at most 10,000 screens available to watch movies. “In the US, which is one-third of our population, they have 40,000 screens, and China has 90,000 screens! In the 10,000 that we have, half are in the South and the other in the rest of the country. So for a Hindi film, there are only 5000 screens available,” he said. 
 
Aamir said it’s shocking that for a cinema-loving country, several districts have no theatres. “Our biggest hits over the years have had a footfall of merely three and a half crore people, which is just two percent of our population. So, where is the remaining 98 percent watching our films? We need to have a lot more theatres in India. There are so many districts that don't have a single theatre to watch films. So, I am from a place which has no cinema halls. I might read about a film online, but I will never get to watch it. This is one of our biggest issues, which we have been facing over the decades. India's huge potential can be realised if we have that many screens," he said.