SRK, Aamir, Salman, Hrithik, Karan deserve credit: Amitabh

Legendary Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan is happy that some of the biggest superstars in the country like Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan have helped realise the global potential of Indian Cinema.

While yesteryear filmmakers like Bimal Roy, Mrinal Sen, Satyajit Ray, Raj Kapoor and several others increased the visibility of Hindi and regional cinema in the overseas markets, the current generation has taken Indian Cinema to an all-time global high.

“Internationally, it is very heartening to see the interest in Indian cinema. For many years in the time when I started, cinema was not marketed or promoted the way it is now. We didn’t know about these markets. There were international distributors, but we never knew exactly what used to happen to a film – we used to give it at a pittance because we never realised that people outside would want to watch a Hindi film or any Indian film.” Amitabh told IANS.

With films like 3 Idiots, My Name Is Khan, Dhoom 3 collecting more than 100 crores from the overseas markets alone, Bachchan feels the international market has become a major territory for Hindi films.

“The international market has now become a major territory. It bodes really well because there’s a large expatriate audience and they have passed on their likes to their friends, and therefore this whole community, even foreigners, have started identifying with our films.”

“We used to have a stadium full of people where we used to sing, dance to numbers of the Hindi film industry – filling up the Wembley Stadium of 65,000 people – it was immense – New Jersey – 75,000 people. I saw the amount of love, affection and interest and that was really a revelation for us.”

“The generation that came immediately after us – Shahrukh, Salman, Aamir and Karan Johar too – they pushed this potential into the international world. So if you want to give credit for the recognition, these are the people who should be credited” Bachchan was quoted as saying.

“Shahrukh is as popular in Germany as he is here, Hrithik and Salman and Aamir are loved internationally in equal proportion. So, obviously Indian cinema is doing well.”