“The golden age – it just can’t die."
Sanjay Dutt is launching production company Three Dimension Motion Pictures with the intention of bringing back the golden age of heroism to Bollywood.
The actor cited Pushpa and the films of SS Rajamouli as examples of the vanished larger-than-life heroism in the industry.
Sanjay said: “We’re trying to get back what we had, what the South Indian films are doing now.
“When we entered the film industry, we started off with the heroism, the heroic roles, the mass love and everything, and I just saw that stopping. And I am trying to revive that.”
He went on to say that the Bollywood of today, heroism is reduced to a niche.
Sanjay told Variety: “What Denzel Washington and Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson are doing in Hollywood – I think that little gap is missing here.
“I’m trying to get that gap back, of a hero of that age, who can perform and who can fight and who can stand for his rights.
“The golden age – it just can’t die.
“Even if you look at Hollywood, it exists there, and in the South. I don’t know what happened to Bollywood.
“But that’s what we’re trying to get back – those days of heroism.”
Three Dimension is preparing several films, including The Virgin Tree, which will be directed by Sidhaant Sachdev.
Other untitled projects include a family drama and action films featuring both younger and established lead actors.
Sanjay Dutt elaborated: “I will be starring in not all of them, but some of them.
“I would like to relax as the producer, after 40 years of being in the industry – be on the sets on the other side of it.
“That will be an experience for me, I’ve never been in that chair before. I’m looking forward to that.”
The films are all set for theatrical releases.
“I believe in the big screen – I know it can never die down.
“I know that OTT [streaming] is an important part of filmmaking today. But I know eventually theatres will open up and there will be some films only made for theatres.”
On the vanished Bollywood heroism, Sanjay said:
“I feel that this whole corporate structure coming and encroaching our space in Bollywood ruined everything.”
“Because, those guys sitting on the table and who are giving the money, have got no right to interfere with the director for his creation, or with the actors or give their thought to content or a script, when [they] don’t have any idea about it when it’s not their business.
“Their business is funding and that’s where the business ends.
“But once you start interfering in the script and in the direction and in the budgets and this and that, then things go haywire, and that’s why I think we lost out on a lot of good stuff during that time.
“Whereas in the South this corporate structure does not exist.
“There are people who, from the production or from the producer, to the director, to everybody involved in the team… they’re passionate about making good films and that is the thing which has worked for them.
“And that has gone against us because that passion of making movies or that passion of making something great and working and performing is gone.
“Which I think will come back. At least in my company, it will come back.”
Sanjay Dutt’s Munna Bhai franchise has been a massive hit and fans have been calling for a third film.
The actor revealed that he has asked director Rajkumar Hirani and producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra about a third instalment several times and has suggested that since he and co-star Arshad Warsi are older, the script should reflect that.
“They are in the thinking process and God willing it’ll happen.”
On whether Three Dimension could be the place for a web series on Sanjay’s life, the actor replied:
“You’ve put that seed in my head, I’m going to be thinking about it now.”
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