Anurag Kashyap on Bandar, Main Vaapas Aaunga woes: ‘Word of mouth isn’t allowed to build’ | Bollywood News
5 min readMumbaiJun 16, 2026 02:27 PM IST The last two Fridays saw filmmakers Anurag Kashyap and Imtiaz Ali release their movies back-to-back. First came the prison drama Bandar, followed by the Partition-era romance Main Vaapas Aaunga. While both films earned critical acclaim, their box-office performance has been largely underwhelming. Now, Kashyap has spoken about what he sees as a growing problem in the theatrical business, the lack of opportunities for smaller films to find an audience through word of mouth. ‘Nobody has actually seen it in theatres’ Last week, the filmmaker took to Instagram to point out that most prime-time shows had been allotted to the Hollywood blockbuster Obsession, while Hindi films such as Bandar and Main Vaapas Aaunga struggled to secure screens. Elaborating on his concerns in an interview with HT City, he said, “I get angry, upset because people keep coming to me and talking about how they love this film and that film. I often ask them, ‘Where did you see it?’ and nobody has actually seen it in theatres. I’m …
