Advertisement
A producer with an air of ease, the head honcho at UTV Motion Pictures, Siddharth Roy Kapur is all smiles about their association with Anurag Basu’s upcoming ‘Barfi!’. After a hectic day of full fledged promotions for their ‘Barfi!’ in Kolkata, we caught up with the 38 year old producer for a short and crisp chat over a cup of coffee!
Excerpts from the rollicking tête-à-tête with the extremely subtle producer who adorned a brown kurta with simple white pyjamas, stamping upon his hunt for ordinariness in a world where people crave for the extraordinary!
From the trailer release, Barfi! has been creating the right amount of buzz with the audience! What are your expectations from the film?
As you say it, my expectations too are humungous! (Laughs) I can only say that Barfi! is one of the finest films that we have produced in UTV. I don’t know or I can’t tell you what the audience would make out of this film, but I can assure one thing. We saw the film just a day back and Barfi! is undoubtedly an entertaining heart warming film that the industry has witnessed in the last few decades!
Three films releasing back to back, one after the other. With Joker, Barfi! and Heroine all coming up one by one, how hectic has it been for the team?
Yes, it has been really hectic. We have working 24*7 for the whole month where each film has been under great scrutiny and the team has worked really hard together to make all this possible. We have been focused on each film with so much of passion that I don’t think any director can even complain about anything. They would not be able to say that we focused on the other films and not theirs!
After Barfi!, in juts a week, you have the much awaited ‘Heroine’ releasing too. Don’t you think it was a blunder to release two big budgeted films at around the same time as they might eat into each others’ businesses?
No, I don’t think really think this factor affects anything much. Honestly, if a film is good, it will run and nothing can stop it from achieving what it has to! If you look at last year, Delhi Belly, Singham, Zindagi na Milegi Dobara all released around the same time. But then each of the film had its own share of business, regardless of a Hrithik Roshan flick or an Ajay Devgan flick affecting a much smaller ‘Delhi Belly’! Each film was a super-hit! It is like if audiences are waiting to watch a film like Barfi!, they would watch it. The two films Barfi and Heroine are so different from each other that people would like to catch both of them, week after week.
Barfi! and Heroine are two of the most anticipated releases of the year. So are you eyeing a 100 crore run with these films in your kitty?
We are already in the 100 crore brigade with a Rowdy Rathore. We have already achieved that feat. Every film has got a basic structure and composition. You cannot expect a ‘Paan Singh Tomar’ or a’Vicky Donor’ to cross the 100 crore mark, in spite of being terrific films! It will not be relevant because they are smaller films. They do not need to do a 100 crore business. They have a different audience. But the commercial structure that films like Barfi! and Heroine thrives on is completely different! With ‘Barfi’ we would be thrilled if we reach the 100 crore mark. But we are not saying that ‘it has to happen’. 100 crore would just be a testimony to the fact that people have liked the film and we would definitely love many more people to like our films!
From a time where people only considered ‘Yash Raj’ and ‘Dharma’ as the two big production houses in the country, UTV has carved a niche for itself with its array of powerful films. Day by day, expectations from the brand is also sky rocketing. How does that make you feel?
We actually love the fact that there are high expectations from us because that will help us deliver. When people expect a lot from you, it is then when you know you have done enough for a lot to be expected! Right from the time it got launched, we have tried hard to reach the level we have in the last seven years!
After these two big budgeted films, what more are we going to see from UTV?
Well, yes, there’s a lot coming up from our house. There is a film called ‘Kai Po Che!’ directed by Abhishek Kapoor of Rock On fame that is based on Chetan Bhagat’s novel, ‘The Three Mistakes of My Life’! It is a beautiful story which is really interesting! Then there is ‘Ghanchakkar’ with Emraan Hashmi and Vidya Balan. After that we have Sajid Khan’s ‘Himmatwala’, Prakhash Jha’s ‘Satyagraha’ and of course we have the biggie in store. Shah Rukh Khan and Rohit Shetty are coming together for the first time in ‘Chennai Express’, which is also headed by UTV! So there is a lot going on!
Advertisement
