'Indian cinema is failing, it can be biggest startup': Vivek Agnihotri's open letter to Piyush Goyal

Filmmaker Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri has written an open letter to Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, warning that Indian cinema is failing to innovate and calling for urgent government support to reverse what he described as a "$20 billion lost opportunity".

The letter, titled “Why Indian Cinema is Failing — And How Govt Can Fix Our $20 Billion Lost Opportunity,” was posted on X on Monday, days after Goyal's remarks at the Startup Maha Kumbh, where he criticised Indian startups for focusing on ventures like food delivery and fantasy sports apps. 

Speaking at the Startup Maha Kumbh, Goyal had said, “Do we have to make ice cream or chips? Dukaandari hi karna hai (Do we want to just sell things)?” He called India’s limited number of deep-tech startups “a disturbing situation” and urged young entrepreneurs to move towards sectors like EVs, semiconductors, and AI.

Agnihotri said those remarks “were deeply resonant” and urged Goyal to extend the same lens to Indian cinema, which he called a “sector with immense cultural and economic potential.” Despite being the world’s second-largest film producer, he said the industry has “failed to innovate, compete globally, or harness its soft power potential like Korea or Japan.”

“Globally, cinema and OTT thrive on bold storytelling and technological disruption,” Agnihotri wrote, pointing to examples like Boyhood, 1917, Parasite, and Netflix’s Adolescence. He compared that with Indian cinema's “East India Company syndrome” — “we create the raw material, but others own and profit from our stories.”

He described a grim state of affairs: shuttered studios, disillusioned producers, and a rise in “non-actors better suited to making Instagram reels or dancing in weddings than meaningful cinema.” According to him, Bollywood, once a beacon of soft power, has become “flower power—style without substance.”

Even the audience experience, he noted, is in decline. “Outdated multiplex screens, exorbitant ticket and food prices, and theatres resembling food courts,” have turned cinema into “an unaffordable luxury with diminishing returns.”

Citing his own experience with The Kashmir Files, Agnihotri said, “A non-starrer, risky narrative—broke Bollywood’s formulaic mould but came at a personal cost: fatwas, security threats, relentless backlash and character assassination.”

“If truth invites such hostility, how can we expect innovation?” he asked, calling for government funding, incentives, and platforms to support “bold storytellers, not just star-driven fluff.” He added, “Indic cinema can be the biggest startup of India, with potential to generate jobs, export cultural capital, and build global influence just as Korea’s entertainment industry has done.”

“Just as startups must prioritise real value, Bollywood must shift from elite appeasement to global relevance,” Agnihotri wrote. “Cinema can be an economic and cultural powerhouse, India’s leading soft power but only with introspection and disruptive innovation.”

In conclusion, he urged Goyal’s intervention to “empower filmmakers who dare to dream—help Indian cinema reclaim its place as a global leader, not a copycat.”