Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj, in a recent event, said that none of his films have worked at the box-office.
“No film of mine has worked at the box office. They never made money… none of my films. Haider just recovered the money. Not even Omkara, I was told,” he said at a panel discussion at the Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star.
The director, whose films like Omkaara and Haider have won many accolades at film festivals across the world, said that box-office numbers were never his concern. “But it doesn’t bother (me). I have chosen to make such kind of films. I don’t expect a big dhamaka. If it ever happens, I will probably introspect,” he said.
Bhardwaj, who is also an acclaimed music composer, is known for his exemplary adaptations of Shakespearean dramas to the Indian screen. His Omkara was based on Othello, while Haider was loosely based on the Bard’s Hamlet.
Haider, starring Shahid Kapoor and Tabu, had won the People’s Choice Award in the Mondo Genere at the ninth edition of the Rome Film Festival and had bagged 5 national awards in 2015.
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Bhardwaj also said that Makdee, a comedy-horror film starring Shabana Azmi and Shweta Basu Prasad, was the toughest film of his career. The 2002 film was rejected by the Children’s Film Society and the director had to release it by himself. Later, it won a national award for the Best Child Artiste (Shweta Basu).
The director is now busy working on his period-romance film set against the backdrop of World War II. Rangoon, starring Kangana Ranaut, Shahid Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan, is scheduled to release in February 2017.
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