Rohit Shetty, director of last year’s Dilwale, in a recent interview took full responsibility for the film’s underwhelming response. The film, starring Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Varun Dhawan, and Kriti Sanon, was regarded as a disappointment. Shetty admitted that he catered to the fans of Shahrukh Khan and Kajol more in the film, thereby compromising on the script.
“Dilwale is the only film I have made without conviction, yet. I got intimidated by the need to cater to Shahrukh Khan and Kajol’s massive fan following. The initial film was to be a tri-hero project about three brothers and Kajol’s track was to be of a mere four to five scenes. This change was also by my own willful voluntariness. We went wrong with it, in the process,” he admitted.
While the film marked the reunion of Shahrukh Khan and Kajol on screen after seven years, the actress in an interview this June admitted that she regretted doing the film. According to a ToI report, Kajol regretted choosing Shetty’s film instead of taking up Sujoy Ghosh’s film, which was eventually given to Vidya Balan.
Read: Roars That Turned Into A Whimper – Big Cine Blunders In 2015
Shetty, however, said that Dilwale taught him a lesson on never pandering to mass audiences with the script at stake. “We finished the scripting of Ram Lakhan and started approaching the current crop of young actors in Bollywood. But all of them were apprehensive about doing a two-hero project and wanted to do a solo film with me. But the lesson I learnt from Dilwale made me stick to my conviction and I decided to keep the script aside, temporarily,” he said.
Also read: Dilwale Review – Colours And Cars, And Utterly Drab
Dilwale was the second film Shetty and Shahrukh worked on, after the blockbuster hit Chennai Express (2013). While Chennai Express ended up breaking several box office records in India and abroad, becoming the quickest film to collect ₹1 billion (US$15 million), Dilwale grossed over ₹372 crore (US$55 million) worldwide.
Currently, the Golmaal director confirmed that he has Golmaal 4 and a solo project with a young star in the pipeline.