Salman Khan: Dabangg And Tere Naam Were Small Films That Worked Completely On Content

Audiences relate Salman Khan with big budget, commercial films in the Hindi film industry. The Bhai of Bollywood, who is all set for the release of Dabangg 3, the third instalment to his successful cop film franchise, says that Dabangg and Tere Naam are 'small films that worked on content'. However, he acknowledges that the scale and budget of Dabangg have now increased.

In an interview with BollywoodLife, Salman Khan discussed the rising production of 'content-driven' films in the industry. He said, "I think they're talking about a different kind of content. I think they're talking about the smaller movies, the web, that kind of content. You know that kind of parallel cinema that used to not work earlier, like what we used to call art cinema, which used to be a different chain of cinema, has now become a part of standard cinema. A bit of commercialism has now been added to it; earlier they used to be very small-budgeted films - now the budget has increased a bit and they've been shifted here now is what I feel, and it's a good thing."

He continued, "So Dabangg was that film. The first Dabangg was a 2-crore film. Tere Naam was also that film. But since they happened with me, they happened like this, now what to do? Nobody remembers that they were small films that worked completely on content."

Salman added that till the time content doesn't click, the film won't click, irrespective of how big a star one is. One can get the Friday, Saturday and Sunday numbers, but it won't hold beyond that, he opined. "No matter how good you're looking or how good your body's looking, nobody's going to sit and watch your film. Even if they are ready to pay for tickets and stuff like that, no one's going to go and sit there for two-and-a-half hours."

Dabangg 3 is directed by Prabhudeva, and it tells the story of Chulbul Pandey's younger days. Apart from Salman, it stars debutante Saiee Manjrekar, Sonakshi Sinha, Arbaaz Khan, Kannada superstar Sudeep, and Mahie Gill. The film releases on December 20.