Bollywood’s iconic RK Studios, founded by the late legendary actor and producer Raj Kapoor is up for sale. The decision to sell the 70-year-old, four-acre property was taken collectively by the Kapoor family after a massive fire that caught in September 2017 left it partially ruined. Rishi Kapoor has confirmed the news during an interview.

Rishi stated, “For a while, we did juggle with the idea of renovating the place with state-of-the-art technology. However, in reality it isn’t always possible for a phoenix to rise from the ashes. We Kapoors are very emotional lot but then… The investment in rebuilding the studio would just not have yielded sufficient revenue to keep it going. Believe me, we had to take the larger picture into account and take a level-headed decision. Even before the fire, for years R. K. Studio had become a huge white elephant, toting up losses. The few bookings we would get from films, TV serials and ad shoots would expect free parking space, air-conditioning and discounts.” He had tweeted, “A studio can be built again but the loss of the irreplaceable memorabilia and costumes of all RK Films, is tragic for all. Fire took it away.”

The studio was the venue for many popular movies like ‘Jis Desh Me Ganga Behti Hain’ (1960), ‘Mera Naam Joker’ (1970), ‘Bobby’ (1973), the debut film for Rishi and Dimple Kapadia, ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’ (1978), ‘Prem Rog’ (1982), ‘Ram Teri Ganga Maili’ (1985), that was Raj Kapoor’s last film before his death in June 1988.