One of the reasons why the lovely puckish Loveyapa, which has shown an increase in footfalls on Day 2, opened to an underwhelming response was the ‘nepo’ label attached to its lead players. Thanks to the constant harping on the debate on legacy and undeserved privilege in the film industry, audiences have become unreasonably wary of actors from within the film industry.
But this prejudice, built and fuelled on social media, is highly unfair. Agreed, not every industry kid is a Ranbir Kapoor or an Alia Bhatt. But then, every outsider is not Sushant Singh Rajput or Kartik Aryan.
Junaid Khan and Khushi Kapoor faced the added pressure of being compared with their iconic parents, Aamir Khan and Sridevi.
Says Loveyapa director Advait Chandan, “So yeah, Junaid and Khushi, in spite of their undeniable talent, came at a double disadvantage. It is as if they had to prove themselves far beyond the normal newcomers. I think rejecting debutantes for being from the industry is wrong, as is rejecting newcomers from outside the industry. Both Junaid and Khushi are genuinely talented newcomers. In fact, they’ve both proved themselves on the OTT (Junaid in Maharaj and Khushi in The Archies).”
A trade guru who doesn’t want to be named (“because Himesh wouldn’t like it”) says the movie business is going through topsy-turvy times. “The fact that Badass Ravi Kumar got a better opening than Loveyapa proves something is seriously amiss at the box office. We are not telling the truth about the collections. The audience has become highly unpredictable. It rejects and accepts new releases without any sturdy logic. It’s almost become like Russian Roulette. How do we explain the success of Sanam Teri Kasam, which was rejected in 2016?”
