The sequel of an adult comedy requires more titillation than the first part: Riteish Deshmukh

Riteish Deshmukh, who is looking forward to the release of Grand Masti, is quite happy doing sequels. “Most of my latest films have been sequels like Double Dhamaal, Houseful 2 , Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum,” he informs. And now the sequel of Masti that he was part of way back in 2004. All of them have done 50 per cent more business than their earlier versions. “When Kya Super Cool did a theatrical business of Rs 48 crores, it was a big thing for a film that had Tusshar Kapoor and me as the main leads. I have done films which grossed much more that that but then they had bigger names like Akshay Kumar (Houseful, Houseful 2). The fact that we did so much business just shows that there is a market for such kind of content as well,” Riteish adds. However, at this point of time, while batting for sequels, Riteish adds a very important caveat. “Ultimately, the film has to be good. The film being a sequel will only get you initial attention, but what finally matters is content. It is not a success formula per se.” On the reasons why more and more sequels are being made, Riteish says, “May be they don’t spend enough time on writing. Agreed, sequels are limited as we can’t go beyond a point. Also unlike Hollywood, we can’t go berserk with our imagination. Out here, we still have to tread carefully; we can’t go off on a completely different tangent.” Do you feel the risqué factor goes higher in an adult comedy sequel? “Newer yes, but higher can’t say. Like when we have an action film and the first part of which had one car being smashed up, the sequel will need vehicles flying in the air to answer the ‘what’s new’ question. Similarly in a comedy format, we need to titillate the audience more without crossing the line. During the shooting of Grand Masti, all of us took calls on what we felt was too much. But ultimately since this call as to what is vulgar or not was too personal, we had the age limit in place,” he answers. Grand Masti releases this Friday (13 September 2013).