Thirteen years after its release, Kabir Khan’s Ek Tha Tiger (ETT) has earned an international honour recently – a place at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC, alongside legendary works like James Bond films and Mission: Impossible. For Kabir, the feat is “sweet and flattering”.

He shares, “I’ve always said that the success of a film is never about the money it makes at the box office. Of course, that is important, but what really makes a difference is for how long that film is spoken about and how long it captures people’s imagination. Thirteen years after the release of the film, if it is still being spoken about with such love and respect and being given this position, then that’s what true success is.”

Kabir doesn’t believe that this achievement will lead to makers attempting more action films. “Action doesn’t need any more promotion in this country,” he says, adding, “In fact, I have a feeling that there are too many action films happening.”

Kabir goes on to explain that Ek Tha Tiger succeeded because its action was rooted in drama and emotion rather than spectacle alone. “There was a very strong, dramatic reason for the action in the film. The action sequences need to go with the narrative. Then you’re really invested in the action because it becomes a part of the drama and storytelling. No one is going to be wowed by only seeing massive action scenes on screen now. Ultimately, emotions move you. Action films need to get back a little more to the sort of raw action which went along with the storytelling, as opposed to over-the-top action that we are seeing, which has no emotion running through it. We’re just doing it to show grand visuals with VFX and AI,” Kabir says.

While Ek Tha Tiger went on to become a massive success, it also had two successors – Tiger Zinda Hai and Tiger 3. Ask him why he stepped away from the sequels, and he replies, “If you see my filmography, you won’t notice a single sequel in it. I believe sequels are what producers need to do because they create an IP, exploit that IP and the success of that IP. But for a director or a storyteller, there’s a fatigue that comes in with a story. Once I’ve completed that journey, something really compelling needs to pull me back to that. Otherwise, I feel I need to move on and get onto something new. If one were to follow the conventional wisdom of the industry, I would just continue making sequels of all my successful films. There would be like three Tigers and three Bajrangis and maybe another New York. However, that’s not the way that I have been attracted to stories as a director. At the end of the day, even James Bond is not made by the same director every time.”