Late Bollywood actor and producer Raj Kapoor’s RK Studios is up for sale after it was gutted in a massive fire last year, says his son, actor Rishi Kapoor. According to a report in Mumbai Mirror, the family took the decision to sell the property collectively.
Rishi said the family decided to sell the property after learning that the renovation of the studio would still not bring in enough revenue to keep the establishment running. “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 told the daily.
A portion of the Kapoor family’s iconic
RK Films And Studios caught fire in September 2017. “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,” tweeted Rishi, son of the studio’s founder, the legendary Raj Kapoor.
The blaze gutted one of the main shooting venues -- the set of dance reality TV show Super Dancer Season 2, but the shooting was not underway. RK Films has produced films such as Barsaat (1949), Awaara (1951), Boot Polish (1954), Shri 420 (1955) and Jaagte Raho (1956).
The studio was the venue for movies like Jis Desh Me Ganga Behti Hain (1960), Mera Naam Joker (1970), Bobby (1973), the debut film for Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia, Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978), Prem Rog (1982), Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985), which was Raj Kapoor’s last film before his death in June 1988.