Sanjay Gupta, who once helmed the gritty crime‑thriller Kaante, launched a fire‑cracker comment on X today. In a collage of three glossy posters—Vicky Kaushal in Love & War, Ranveer Singh in Dhurandhar, Ranbir Kapoor in Animal—each star is caught inhaling a cigarette, a stark contrast to the anti‑smoking reels that play before their films.
The post drew a volley of tweets, one from Avinash Ahluwalia mocking the irony of a director who once sang about cloud‑like smoke now calling out smoke. "Suprised that this is coming from the director of the movie Kaante which has a song which says …"—the comment quickly turned into a meme parade.
CBFC’s fresh guidelines, rolled out last month, now require films that depict illicit drug use to flag a warning: "Illicit Narcotics Destroy Health and Guarantees Imprisonment. Say No to Drugs." The board itself swelled to 18, adding Bollywood stalwarts Preity Zinta, Pankaj Tripathi, and Suniel Shetty, signalling a push toward more socially conscious content.
So what does this mean for poster designers? If a single cigarette can trigger a public outcry, studios may start trimming the puff, or at least pairing it with a hard‑hit health message. The debate underscores that cinema’s glamour can’t escape the real‑world costs of smoking.