The iconic RK Studio built by late legendary actor-director Raj Kapoor will soon be up for sale. The Kapoor family has decided to sell off the landmark studio as it wasn’t economically viable to rebuild it after it was gutted down in a fire last year. According to a Mumbai Mirror report, Raj Kapoor’s wife Krishna Raj Kapoor, sons Randhir, Rajiv and Rishi, and daughters Rima Jain and Ritu Nanda, have collectively decided to sell the sprawling two-acre studio in Mumbai’s suburban Chembur.
On September 16 last year, a major fire broke out on the sets of “Super Dancer” at the studio in which its ground floor was gutted. No casualty was reported in the mishap.
Why the landmark 70-year-old R.K studio will be on sale:
*Rishi Kapoor told Mumbai Mirror that there was a desire to rebuild the studio with “state-of-the-art technology”, but it didn’t come up as a practical decision. Rishi said that the family took a level-headed decision after taking into account the larger picture. He added that for years now, R. K. Studio was incurring losses and the few bookings they would get from films, TV serials and ad shoots would expect free parking space, air-conditioning and discounts. Kapoor explained that the investment in rebuilding the studio would just not have yielded sufficient revenue for it to function.
*Another reason is that Chembur in the eastern suburbs is no longer a favoured destination for filmmakers as most of them build their sets in Goregaon and Andheri. In the past, top filmmakers like Manmohan Desai and Dev Anand’s Navketan Films would hire the studio for their film shootings.
*An emotional Rishi Kapoor said in an interview that if the next generation of Kapoor has family differences then the studio would only end up in litigation. He said that the studio will become a subject of courtroom proceedings that certainly the late Raj Kapoor wouldn’t have wanted.
R.K. Studio was founded and named after the Great Showman, Raj Kapoor, in 1948. The RK banner has made films like “Aag”, “Barsaat”, “Awaara”, “Shri 420”, “Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai”, “Mera Naam Joker”, “Bobby”, “Satyam Shivam Sundaram”, “Ram Teri Ganga Maili”, among others. The last film made under the banner was Rishi Kapoor-directed “Aa Ab Laut Chalen”.
