The Romantics – Episode 4
Moving on…
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
Aditya Chopra spoke about the downs the company went through which made him realize that it was now up to him to give the company a successful hit film. For that to happen, he had to go back to directing. That’s how ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’ happened.
Anushka Sharma finally comes on screen since that film was her debut. She talks about how ridiculously quiet AC wanted her to be about this project even to her parents. Didn’t AC think it through? What will her parents think since they live together? Clips of the film are shown, AC said he was under a lot of pressure but being on the sets made him happy. Maybe it was because he was away from all the stress, the office stress, and personal life stress.
He is shown to be directing on the sets of the famous song from that film that featured a lot of heroines including his wife opposite SRK.
AC talks about the challenge of the film was to make the audience believe that Anushka’s character was blind enough not to see the difference between her on-screen husband and the hippy guy. The film being a hit proved he was successful in doing that. The reviewers, though, were not so blind:
From the online archives:
Mumbai Attacks
Right before the film was supposed to be released, the dreadful Mumbai Attacks happened. Clips of the attacks are shown so that you remember what Mumbai went through. But AC was like, his film was going to come out in 2 weeks and a lot of people were advising him to push back the film but he didn’t because he didn’t believe the film will not work. He believed hordes of people will flock to the theatre to watch RNBDJ. The movie did well and YRF was back on track!
Befikre – people didn’t get it
Now AC talks about the failure of ‘Befikre’ and it hit him badly. In this whole documentary, he tried to appear well-aware and knowledgeable but in this very moment, he tried to put across his reason why ‘Befikre’ was such a colossal flop and disappointment. Here’s his logic:
Bear in mind that the film lifted so many scenes from other films or should we say the film was inspired by foreign films that were accepted by the audience then and yet he thinks it didn’t work because the audience didn’t expect that from him.
From the online archives:
Would ‘Befikre’ have worked had Anurag Kashyap directed it? The audience expected better because of the way he packaged the product and sold it to them through its promos. As if it was a big deal he is coming back to direct. Heck, they even had the mayor of Paris launch this trailer! Clearly, he thought he did something exceptional.
Dum Laga Ke Haisha
AC and Maneesh Sharma talk about making this film. Obviously, because it was such a different film for them to produce and it did become a surprise hit.
Then AC talks about getting Bhumi Pednekar the role. She was Shanoo Sharma’s assistant whose job was to audition talent. Shanoo discovered Bhumi’s talent and asked her to go to the gym to lose weight so she can become an actress. When AC contacted Shanoo for the role in DLKH, Shanoo had her stop going to the gym and start eating.
This is the closest we are going to get to what it takes to be a YRF heroine.
From the online archives:
Back to Yash Chopra…
The documentary goes back abruptly to Yash Chopra and how his actors loved working with him. Shah Rukh Khan comes back on, and Madhuri Dixit and Anil Kapoor talk about their experience working with the late Yash Chopra.
Yash Chopra’s Demise
Everyone talks about the untimely demise of Yash Chopra. Obviously, everyone had their own stories but Uday was probably the most touching one. Karan Johar said Uday is still deeply affected by the loss of his father.
They showed all these lovely clips of the late Yash Chopra which got us thinking that he was always out there meeting and interacting with people. Now if they have to do a documentary about Mr. India aka Aditya Chopra, it would be hard to find enough clips to cover the first 10 mins.
We kid you not, the last shot of Yash Chopra had this picture in the background (see gif below) and we thought it was him and a young Rani Mukherjee but it turned out it was his wife a young Pamela Chopra! Then the next picture is that of the cast of ‘Veer Zaara’ with Yash. Kinda weird! Not so weird if you think about who Rani ended up with!
YRF in Hollywood – courtesy of Uday Chopra
They move on to Uday creating his own path by managing the YRF office in Hollywood. They also show clips of him being at the Cannes Film Festival with Nicole Kidman as the first film he took charge to produce had her in it and it was a huge disaster and disappointment. That doesn’t seem to affect the Chopras since money is never an issue!
Aditya Chopra’s Achievements so far…
So as this episode ends, Aditya is asked if he has achieved everything he set out to do. He said: 50%. Then he goes on to list his dream projects that include a theme park and bringing Broadway to India. And the biggest of it all: make YRF known in Hollywood. The last one might be hard since they keep copying their films so…Uday once mentioned his brother is dying to make a romantic film in Hollywood with big stars and Uday told him that no one knows him there, so none of the big stars will be at his beck and call like the Bollywood ones are!
THE END!
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