'Improper marketing' not 'story' cause of Dangerous Ishq failure: Vikram Bhatt

Vikram Bhatt, the self confessed most successful horror film director of India, is all set to unleash Raaz 3 in 3D starring Emraan Hashmi, Bipashu Basu and Esha Gupta on 7 September 2012. But before this third installment of the black magic franchise, Vikram had experimented with reincarnation and past life regression in Dangerous Ishq. Sadly this comeback vehicle of Karisma Kapoor tanked at the box office. Feels Vikram, “I would say that it was improper marketing than the story that led to the movie not doing well. He also felt that that too much emphasis was put on the film marking Lolo’s (Karisma’s nick name) return to acting after marriage than to performance and plot. “Even during the media interactions, scribes were more bothered about what I felt regarding the comeback, however much I tried to bring the attention back to the past life regression etc. Hence I had doubted then only that things might go awry.” However, Vikram, who debuted with Janam in 1992, has seen many ups and down takes this bad news in his stride. “Whenever you attempt to try out something different, you will either click or will not. When I had made Haunted, everybody had laughed at me saying how you can make a film with Mimoh Chakraborty and that too in 3D. Yet it rocked at the box office.” Similarly, the trade scoffed at the flashback scenes in Raaz post interval, but we (Mahesh Bhatt and me) stood by our convictions, for that was the basis of our story of a ghost (Malani Sharma) crazy after Dino Morea. On the flip side, when I had discussed Dangerous Ishq outside, everybody said it was a superb idea and it would work. Yet, it didn’t. I always believe that it is better to take a risk and push the envelope, lest we get stuck doing the same thing over and over again.”