Check out PART 1, if you haven’t already.
The Romantics – Episode 3
This episode is special…
Because it addresses the big elephant in the room:
Nepotism!
That said, we don’t know why this is being asked over and over again by those who come from film families. It’s a waste of time because they will never understand what it is like to make it as an outsider. It’s just useless to ask them!
But here asking Aditya Chopra a question about nepotism is important because he’s the man who backed his brother continuously until both realized it was pointless.
What he says, though, his defense doesn’t really matter because he is missing the point here. On one hand, he doesn’t realize that he gave a hard time to the newcomers he launched by criticizing their looks, physique, acting, and whatnot but when it came to his own brother, he failed to see what was missing. Isn’t it ironic? He was allegedly advising Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma honestly but he wasn’t upfront with his own brother. Or perhaps, he was just blind!
AC forgets to mention that ample chances were given to Uday. Most of which were from Yash Raj Films and AC even greenlit Uday’s first directorial debut starring the man himself.
Then, Uday Chopra, the man himself comes on screen explaining how he decided to become an actor after he couldn’t make up his mind about what he wanted to do in life. By the way, he still looks good! In this documentary, he comes across as those young boys who grew up with money but are lost as to what their purpose is in life.
His best-friend Hrithik Roshan makes an appearance, ’cause why not they are besties after all. HR said he was shocked when he found out Uday was going to be an actor. Why? Didn’t he realize that Uday basically saw how HR became an actor and became a sensation when he made his debut and Uday subsequently realized he too wants the same thing? That’s how he build up his body and even wore colored contact lenses but acting-wise, he was mimicking SRK. Bollywood already had SRK and one HR, a mix was not really welcomed at that time. He, more or less, didn’t have what it takes to make him stand out…That is until ‘Dhoom’ came along!
By the way, should this be the most disappointing film AC decided to produce?
Speaking of SRK, AC really did want his brother to make it. Here’s what we found from a news article years ago.
Aditya Chopra wanted Uday to have his own DDLJ
From the news archives:
Again, see what we meant about lifting stories from the West and then pretending the idea is original? 👆 👆 👆
Moving on…
Mujhse Dosti Karoge – a big no-no
AC talks about his stint as a producer and he starts with ‘Mujhse Dosti Karoge’. We thought he was going to talk about how it’s the film where he got his future missus in it while he was still married to the first missus. But no, he talks about how he so didn’t want to produce that film. It seems Mr. Producer (AC) has a hard time getting over things that he was forced to do or rather in his case, he DID NOT want to do them. Funnily though, he doesn’t mention Rani Mukherjee at all…Not even what they did with her character, making her less attractive than Kareena Kapoor’s character. He doesn’t even mention Kareena! He only mentions Hrithik. Maybe he has a problem mentioning women or giving them credit by calling them out nicely. What he also doesn’t mention are two facts that we have known which are the idea of this film came from Karan Johar who told this story of bangles to the director Kunal Kohli and he loved the idea so much that he wrote a script based on that. Second was, according to Kunal, though it was a big flop and disappointment in India, it was a huge hit in the UK.
What was AC’s point in bringing up ‘Mujhse Dosti Karoge’? To prove that he was right in guessing the film was not going to work from then on, his dad gave him complete control since AC seems to know what worked and what didn’t.
AC goes on to name the films that he decided to produce and how these films became hits. Again, he never mentioned how ‘Hum Tum’ changed things for Rani, Saif, and even Kunal. He only said begging his dad to let him produce this script and then after, they showed off the Rani, Saif, and Kunal winning Filmfare Awards for the movie. For some reason, they didn’t mention Saifu won his first National Award for ‘Hum Tum’!
Rani does appear at this point in the documentary but she talked about the same thing that she spoke about in other interviews.
Dhoom
– Relaunch of Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, and Uday Chopra
AC moves on to talking about ‘Dhoom’, taking full credit that he came up with that story and concept but never mentioning that the story was lifted (or inspired as they say) from several foreign films. AC is proud of ‘Dhoom’ because it was such a hit as he thought it would be and the movie relaunched the career of Uday, Abhishek Bachchan, and John Abraham. John then comes on talking about the film from what appears to be a gym?! AC does not mention Esha Deol or Rimi Sen at all. They did become famous with this film as well.
Lily Singh comes back on screen again talking about how ‘Dhoom’ is the first action film from Bollywood.
Then they are showing how ‘Dhoom’ influenced the youth and Lily Singh!
Yeah, Lily Singh!
Moving on to talking about ‘Dhoom 2’ by HR…How it became upscaled and got bigger and better.
According to Lily Singh, ‘Dhoom’ is better than any Hollywood action film.
Time for ‘Bunty Aur Babli’
Nothing interesting here except AC mentioned how he made being desis cool again instead of being NRIs. No mention of how the story was slightly lifted from ‘Catch Me If You Can’.
Onto to Chakde India
The documentary refers to how big of a deal this film was, both to YRF and India.
Launching New Actors
AC said it was his own instinct that made him launch newcomers. Shanoo Sharma comes in because she’s the main casting director over there. Wanna be a YRF hero or heroine? Befriend her! No, we are just kidding. But those with connections to her did make it though, including that Pandey kid! So knowing her does help.
Of course, the documentary cannot skip over their biggest talent. The one that AC takes credit for launching: Ranveer Singh! How time has gone by! Now Ranveer himself stepped out of YRF talent since they kind of let him down. He could have said no to their silly stories but…
From the news archives:
AC comes on to say he initially didn’t think RS looked good at all…Kind of funny considering he thought his brother had potential. See? This is what nepotism is and they will never get it. Ironically, this part is in the same nepo episode. Ranveer tells the story of how he met AC and all that but never addresses the strong rumors that his dad financed the film. Also, RS looks so different now. That freshness that he once had is gone! Maybe because he’s constantly everywhere.
AC finally mentions Anushka Sharma in passing and she comes on for a min. Ayushmann is next. He is currently their most successful talent since RS left.
At the end of this episode, they made sure to make their talent talk about the non-filmy background they come from and their middle-class upbringing to show that YRF also welcomes people who are not like them.
Uday comes back on. AC calls him very talented and hardworking. Uday said he never imagined people would not take to him.
Clearly, these star kids come in this line thinking that they will be famous and loved like these big stars are. They don’t realize the hard work and sacrifice that went behind making these actors superstars.
AC mentioned that Uday realized that this wasn’t for him.
So does that mean they would have continued giving him roles if he was still keen to pursue acting?
The Romantics – Episode 4
Bollywood – really?
Nothing much here, they are just discussing how they hate being called Bollywood because it’s a term that was given to make fun of Hindi films or Indian films as if they are low-grade. Kind of funny considering some of these actors speaking here have claimed in the past they don’t watch Hindi films, they prefer European cinema! Like watching Hindi films was below them!
Yash Raj Studio – Aditya Chopra’s Dream for YRF
Yash Chopra has always mentioned that the studio was a gift for his son, Aditya. Isn’t having a studio for them mean being in control? No one else can have that control but them. It also makes him powerful in the Hindi Film Industry. Yash Chopra also probably didn’t realize then that this meant his son was always to be there in the studio, it would be his reason for staying in, hiding from the rest and he would never be interested in going out and meeting people like Yash used to do. In fact, he did complain all AC does is work in the studio the whole time.
This was what his mother Pamela once said about Aditya:
Pamela Chopra, Uday, and Aditya all speak about the studio thoroughly but never mention the person who also had a hand in making YR Studio happen: Payal Khanna, Aditya’s first wife. She does appear in the photographs of the launch, though, but no sign of Aditya anywhere. No surprise there!
From the archives:
Everyone goes on to mention how it’s a first-class studio that has Hollywood people in awe. To support this theory, they showed clips of Akon singing ‘Chamak Challo’ in the studio and Will Smith rehearsing in one of their dance studios.
YRF Dream Hit Phase
Uday talks about how YRF can do no wrong, and so does AC. This was at a time when their films were working at the box office.
Flop Phase at YRF
Uday connects the bad phase of YRF with his mother’s sickness. Uday mentions he got close to his dad during this time since his brother was so busy working.
Actually, the bad phase also started when Aditya started focusing on something else. Or should we say, someone else? The year 2007 started badly for YRF but it was also the beginning of a bad phase for someone else: Rani Mukherjee.
All this happened at the same time…
So much drama, some of you might aware of that already but obviously, it is never mentioned in the documentary because this is about Aditya Chopra, the smart guy.
Father and Son reportedly had an argument about AC’s decisions as it was really getting bad for them. Imagine being on a high then suddenly, every film starts flopping.
More than losing money, it also meant losing face. For a man who liked being in control, it’s not hard to believe how this must have hit him.
But the flop phase also coincided with something else that was happening…
From the news archives:
So that was a little flashback to what was also happening simultaneously that year.
End of Part 2…
Part 3 will be updated tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
