Manoj Bajpayee is not happy with the way his film Joram was marketed. “It was the producer’s Zee Studios’ decision to give Joram a limited release. I had no say in the matter.Personally I feel Joram should have got a much larger release. I think it had the potential to be a success. Look at 12th Fail and how Vinod Chopra and Zee Studios pushed it. Its success is an eyeopener. In the midst of all the big-budget action films that did well 12th Fail stood tall.I feel Joram had the potential to be another breakout film of 2023.”
Having said that, Manoj is happy with the response to his films last year. “It’s not easy to stand up in front of the big films of 2023. It is clear the audience enjoyed the films that did well(Jawaan, Pathaan, Gadar, Animal) and who are we to argue with the audiences’ tastes? All we can do is to offer another kind of entertainment , hoping the audience would like something else besides the big blockbusters. But for that we have to first make our films available and visible in cinemas. Agar theatre mein hogi hi nahin toh hamari film kaise dekhne ayenge log(if our films are not in the theatres how will people come to watch them?).”
Speaking about the hue and cry over the violent misogynistic content of some of the recent blockbusters Manoj surmises, “Look, my take on this is simple.If cinema had the power to change society and re-arrange mindsets then there would have been Ram Rajya in the country by now.Filmmakers like Raj Kapoor, V Shantaram, Bimal Roy and Mehboob Khan made great reformist films. Did they change the societal structure and prejudices even a bit? Did Bimal Roy’s Sujata reduce caste discrimination? Did Shantaram’s Do Aaankhen Barah Haath bring reforms in prisons? I think cinema is predominantly for entertainment. Films, no matter how negative in their worldview, cannot change the way people think.”