MUMBAI: Actor Rani Mukerji recently attended the FICCI Frames event in Mumbai. At the event, Rani lauded Shah Rukh Khan‘s Pathaan for being a game-changer not only for Yash Raj Films but also for opening gates for theatrical releases thereon.
She discussed how her husband Aditya Chopra didn’t succumb to the pressures of the pandemic and release some of their biggest films in the OTT space.
Rani said at the event, “During the pandemic, Adi (Aditya Chopra) had these couple of big films that were to be released. They were those commercial potboilers, which started in the pre-pandemic time. Unfortunately, when the pandemic started, there was a question mark on all the films. And that’s the time when I observed my husband closely because there were no talks of films releasing. There was a lot of pressure on filmmakers to release all these films on OTT and a lot of them were doing that. The biggest films were releasing on OTT. And my husband was completely calm and composed.”
She added, “I would use the word ‘conviction’, that my husband had, and he said, ‘These movies were made for theatricals, for the audiences at large to enjoy. I would want to release these films theatrically.’ He was being offered a lot of money to release it on OTT, which would be a win-win situation for the OTT platform, and for the producers, where he was making a profit by releasing it on OTT.”
Rani Mukerji even shared how it was Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan that changed things for Yash Raj Films at a time when stakes were down. She said, “In time when the films came, all of those films flopped because the whole way the audience watched content changed overnight because of OTT. All these films failed at the box office and it took a complete hit commercially because none of the films did well. It was like complete depression. People were sad in our company and the whole conviction that Adi stood with that his movies would be released theatrically. We thought that there would be some divine intervention and that he would be rewarded for his conviction of releasing films theatrically, and everything kind of didn’t work for us. Then came Pathaan. It changed the entire thing forward at Yash Raj. And it became the highest-grossing film.”
“So when you ask me, what are the things that need to change is, filmmakers need to have more faith in the product that they make, and they should believe in it and stand with each other to make that change. Today, Pathaan stood the test of time and opened the floodgates for people going into cinemas,” the actor added.
Pathaan became the highest grosser of 2023 and in a way lifted the dry spell theatres were going through during the pandemic.
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Credits - Indian Express
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