A star is the only captain of the ship: RGV

Mumbai: Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma feels that today's film directors are no longer the captain of a ship, as it is the star who actually rules.

"Bollywood stars have completely shattered the myth of the director being the captain of a ship...a star is truly the only captain of the ship," Varma wrote on twitter.

Varma gained recognition in Bollywood, with the Hindi version of 'Shiva' in 1990 and 'Rangeela' (1995). While his hugely successful film 'Satya' (1998) won him six Filmfare awards, his 2002 film 'Company' got seven Filmfare awards.

Taking potshots at other directors like Anubhav Sinha and Vijay Krishna Acharya (also known as Victor), the maverick filmmaker thinks that times are changing as actors have taken a centre-stage in the movie-making business.

"The most awaited Ra.One's director has only a negative record...whether Ra.One is directed by Anubhav Sinha or Karan Johar, people will still see. The director of 'Tashan' touted as Yashraj ki aag is directing 'Dhoom 3'...if Aamir makes even his dog a director I will be first in queue for a ticket," Varma said.

"I always believed that directors' importance has always been there, only because stars had an illusion of their importance and so producers followed the same. But now that illusion has been broken. The rest should wake up and kick the high flying directors out and make that money also for themselves," he said.

"If I myself as a director not caring about who is directing these films and I am running to the theatre what do the audience care about directors?," he added.