Life doesn’t stop at box office numbers: Farhan Akhtar

Actor says success isn’t just based on numbers.

MUMBAI: With the success of latest Bollywood movies such as Chennai Express and Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani — good reviews at the box office and good amount of revenue generated — film-making seems to have become more of a numbers game. This is becoming increasingly evident as only those movies which enter the INR1 billion club are considered chartbusters.

Actor-film-maker Farhan Akhtar’s last film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag also reaped gold at the box office. He believes that minting money is surely one parameter to measuring a film’s success, but numbers are the ‘be-all’ and ‘end-all’ of film-making. When asked if he is an actor who keeps track of the numbers his movies make, Farhan said, “Not to the extent that it drives me crazy. When you work on your film, you want it to do well and one barometer of knowing whether your film is doing well or not is the box office.”

“The other way is to know how people are talking about it. Also, how many years after its release people will still remember it — that is also another level of success. So that’s one aspect of it that you like to know. But is your happiness only going to be based on this and will life not move on if you don’t get those numbers? You have to move on,” he added.

Farhan’s Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, which also starred actor Sonam Kapoor, crossed the INR1 billion mark at the box office and the film was even declared tax-free in India. Currently, the film-maker is working on the sequel of his hit movie, Rock On.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2013.

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