Aamir Khan Slams Screen Shortage In India

At the WAVES Summit 2025, Aamir Khan highlighted India’s theatre shortage as a major reason behind Bollywood’s box-office struggles, urging the need for cinema infrastructure growth across rural India.

Bollywood’s ‘Mr Perfectionist’ Aamir Khan pulled no punches on Day 2 of the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025, as he laid bare a sobering reality facing the Hindi film industry — a woeful shortage of cinema screens across India. Speaking during a high-powered panel titled “Studios of the Future”, the actor highlighted the glaring gap in theatrical infrastructure as a key culprit behind Bollywood’s recent box-office blues.

Flanked by industry stalwarts Namit Malhotra, Dinesh Vijan, Ajay Bijli, Ritesh Sidhwani, and Hollywood’s Charles Roven, Khan’s remarks drew nods of agreement from the packed house. “I’ve always believed we’ve far too few theatres for a country our size,” he said. “India has around 10,000 screens. The US, with just a third of our population, has 40,000. China tops the list with a staggering 90,000. The numbers speak for themselves.”

The 60-year-old star of Lagaan and Dangal pointed out that half of India’s screens are concentrated in the South, leaving the Hindi-speaking heartland and rural belts dreadfully underserved. He lamented that even the most successful Hindi films — ones that get tongues wagging and tills ringing — still manage to reach only about 3 crore viewers, a meagre 2% of the population.

“In a country that lives and breathes cinema, how can it be that 98% of the people are missing out on big-screen experiences?” Khan asked, his tone laced with concern. “Where are they watching our stories? Are they even watching them at all?”

He wasn’t merely whistling Dixie. Khan underscored the urgency of investing in cinema infrastructure in tier-2 and tier-3 towns, calling it a “decades-old bottleneck” that continues to hobble the industry’s true potential. “Entire districts in India don’t have a single theatre. That’s not just a gap — it’s a chasm,” he said.

The discussion took place against the glittering backdrop of Goa’s Biswa Bangla Convention Centre, where the WAVES Summit has drawn the crème de la crème of the global entertainment fraternity. While topics ranged from AI in animation to OTT distribution, Khan’s sharp critique struck a particularly resonant chord.

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As the sun sets on an era where theatrical releases were considered the mainstay of stardom, Aamir Khan’s words served as a timely wake-up call. Without a serious expansion in the number of screens, the dream merchants of Mumbai may find their stories unable to reach the very audiences they are meant for.

Whether industry leaders and policymakers will take this message on the chin and spring into action remains to be seen. But for now, Khan’s candour has ensured that the elephant in the room is no longer being ignored.