Filmmaker Sanjay Gupta recently spoke to India Today about the evolution of cinema over the last few years, the lack of theatrical releases and the rise of OTT. He also explained why he hasn’t made any OTT series yet. His recent film Visfot was released on OTT.

Visfot was Gupta’s first OTT release. “It’s been almost eight-nine years since I started OTT content, but I have been patient and waited for so many years to get started with it. I never dabbled in it initially,” he told us during the interview. Explaining the reason, he said, “Firstly, I had no interest in it and secondly, the long story format was something I wasn’t very confident about. Now that I’ve grappled with it, I really understand what it’s all about.”

Gupta also spoke about the drop in the number of people visiting theatres. “There are many factors contributing to these numbers,” he said, “Simply put, a person goes to a theatre to watch a film to experience something that is larger than life that takes him to another world. Today, to reach anywhere in a city like Mumbai or anywhere in India, there is traffic, construction work and what not. If someone is dealing with all this and going to a cinema hall with his friends and family, he really wants to enjoy this film-watching experience after working so hard to reach the theatre.”

He said, “Even after all this, if they are shown something which is not good, then the number of people going to the cinema halls will definitely decrease. Also, today the theatres are empty because there are not many good filmmakers who are coming up with new and great content like in the old times.”

Sanjay Gupta, producer of films like Kaante, Shootout at Lokhandwala and Kaabil, also spoke about how many people in the industry are speaking ill of Bollywood.

Gupta said, “Today, thanks to social media, the whole world has come out to badmouth the entertainment industry. Just because you have the power of social media and you have a voice, anyone and everyone is badmouthing the industry for no reason, especially when you are a part of the industry yourself. You eat from here, you have got the whole world from here, you have got your own fame, so there is no point in badmouthing it.”

Bhistole is a Hindi remake of the Venezuelan film Rock, Paper, Scissors. Riteish Deshmukh and Fardeen Khan in lead rolesAnd it is currently streaming on Jio Cinema.