The pandemic brought to the mainstream knowledge of film budgets, box-office collections, and niche terms like overhead costs and recovery. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter and Reddit was a box office expert. But expertise or not, any follower of Indian cinema could see the wide divide between the haves and the have-nots. The bigger films with superstars had crores at their disposal for marketing and publicity. Ironically, the smaller films, which actually needed the marketing push, found themselves struggling to fund it. Varun Gupta of Max Marketing talks to Hindustan Times. Varun Gupta talks about marketing small films Varun Gupta of Max Marketing has helped sell films both big and small. His portfolio boasts Baahubali and Dhurandhar, as well as HanuMan, an unheralded Telugu superhero film that grossed over ₹300 crore worldwide. In an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times, Varun discusses what needs to change in the Indian film marketing ecosystem to help small films find their voice. “The irony is that big films will have the budgets to do this (large-scale marketing). But whether it …