What is the kind of feeling you have been getting about Dunki? I ask this question because although I am a fan of Rajkumar Hirani’s films, the trailer of Dunki did not excite me enough.
– Yes, I agree, there are people who haven’t taken much of a fancy for the trailer of DUNKI, but that’s because they’ve probably missed a very important emotion in it. The point which Shah Rukh Khan makes about the Britishers staying in India for a hundred years — without visas — and ruling over us, but now insisting on visas for Indians to enter their country will be met with applause in the film. That’s because the scene will instil in the viewers a sense of avenging the British Raj when the film unfolds on the screen. And that, in all probability, will be a very big emotion which will endear Shah Rukh and the film to the audience.
What is the biggest takeaway from the runaway success of Animal for the trade and for Ranbir Kapoor?
– For the trade, the biggest takeaway is that if the content is good, length is strength. You may recall, the trade was not at all happy about the film’s running time of 3 hours and 23 minutes. Before the film’s release, exhibitors were unhappy as they would have had to start the first show very early and also because there would have to be a restriction on the number of shows due to its unusual length. But the public didn’t complain about the film’s length. For Ranbir Kapoor, the biggest takeaway is that he has become a hero of the masses after this film. Collections of ‘B’ and ‘C’ class centres for the film are of the kind never before seen for a Ranbir Kapoor starrer.
It was assumed for a long time that action films don’t go down well with the multiplex audience. What happened to that theory?
– The theory has been debunked! Sometimes, false theories are propounded, and they do the rounds for so long that they are assumed to be the gospel truth. However, in reality, they become theories only because nobody questioned them. That action films don’t work in multiplexes was one such theory which gained ground because people blindly accepted it. It is only after the stupendous success of films like RRR (dubbed) and K.G.F. CHAPTER 2 (dubbed) that the trade people started questioning the two-decades-long theory. The runaway success of films like PATHAAN, GADAR 2, JAWAN and ANIMAL this year has reiterated the fact that the theory was baseless.   Â