Karan Johar slams ‘herd mentality’ as he talks about Pushpa, Chhaava, Stree 2 success; addresses spy universe craze and asks, “How will I stand out if I copy?” - EXCLUSIVE

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Karan Johar is known for his candour, and in a recent conversation with Bollywood Hungama, the filmmaker once again shared some hard-hitting insights - this time on the current state of storytelling in the Hindi film industry. From genre fatigue to the obsession with cinematic universes, Johar didn’t hold back in expressing his views on why originality should be celebrated, not sidelined. “I think it's everybody grappling to do what others are doing. I think herd mentality. So, we see Pushpa running and catering so strongly to the tier two and tier three audiences. Suddenly there'll be 20 others wanting to do the same. You see Chhaava working, and everybody will want to make historical dramas! After Stree, everybody wants to make horror comedies. Those worked because they were individually strong, and there was no other option in that genre. And it was a unique thought that made those films work. We all have individual thoughts that are unique to ourselves,” Karan told Bollywo...
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From Airplane! to The Naked Gun, Jim Abrahams was a pioneer of spoof comedy

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The writer and director, who died this week, helped to define what big screen spoofs would look like in the decades after

Very few people can honestly claim to have changed the direction of comedy, but Jim Abrahams – who died this week – is one of them. Thanks to the procession of spoof movies he made, both alone and with his fellow writer-directors David and Jerry Zucker, Abrahams helped to carve out a brand new genre of comedy, equal parts straight-faced and scattergun.

The most enduring Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker (ZAZ) film remains Airplane! After leveraging the show they honed at University of Wisconsin–Madison into the entertaining if directionless sketch film The Kentucky Fried Movie, the trio came across the 1957 aviation thriller Zero Hour! on television. They were so taken by the silly plot and wooden acting that they decided to parody the whole thing, by hewing so closely to the original that they ended up buying the rights to avoid a lawsuit.

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