Since last couple years, Bollywood films have been lagging behind regional south Indian films in terms of popularity and box office collections. So far several actors and filmmakers have shared their opinions on how Bollywood can redeem itself and recently Karan Johar also shared his two cents on the matter. Karan believes that one of Bollywood's major drawback is its over reliance on PR and marketing.

In a recent conversation with Film Companion, Karan stated, “I think we are victims of everything we should be running away from, whether it’s paid PR or media blitz, projections, perceptions all of that. That is plaguing. Also I think we don’t have the conviction. We are victims of herd mentality."

Making specific comparisons with southern cinema, Karan stated, "Tamil cinema and Malayalam cinema have always been story-heavy. They have also been commercial and aesthetic. What happened with Kannada cinema and now Kannada cinema with KGF is that they have a lot of conviction. They don’t listen to other things and follow that conviction. They’re not seeking validation, acceptance, approval."

He concluded by saying, "They are so confident in their skin and convinced with what they are doing. That’s what we all lack. We don’t have that conviction. Suddenly, if biopics are doing well, everyone will make a biopic. Suddenly everyone has woken up to the syntax of southern cinema and now we want to start doing that. We are all so idiotically unconvinced about our strengths and weaknesses that we just tend to be all over the place."