Arun Govil says Adipurush makers meeting BJP ministers and blocking ‘Hanuman seats’ were ‘tactics’, slams film: ‘Should not fool around with God’

In an interview with CNN News18 Govil said one should refrain from playing around with subjects of faith as it is a “sensitive” topic for people. The actor wondered why exactly was it needed to “fool around” with Gods and experiment with a text as revered as Ramayana.

“What I believe is that we should not fool around or we should not take liberties with God. We are very sensitive people, Indians are very sensitive people about their religion, as others are. We Hindus are very sensitive. Other religions are also very sensitive (but) nobody does anything there with other religions. Why? Why us only? Why are they experimenting? What do they want to say?”

“Why do they want to fool around? Why do they want to bring new, new things, to try new things? Leave us alone. Why do you want to touch God in this fashion so please don’t do that. And what was the need for it? There are so many other subjects. Do your creative liberty there. What do you want to prove by doing this kind of thing?” he said.

Adipurush launched its campaign with a teaser last October, which was met with widespread backlash owing to its bad VFX. The makers soon pushed the film’s original January release date due to pending work on VFX and locked June 16 as the release date. During the run-up to its release, the makers of the film met several chief ministers of BJP states and also dropped a zinger: that every show of Adipurush will have one seat reserved for Lord Hanuman

Govil said the makers of Adipurush must have realised that the film would “backfire” and hence started using “tactics” top get people’s attention and help land the movie safely.

“So they went everywhere, to all the chief ministers of BJP states, and as you said, in theatres now, one seat is kept for Lord Hanuman. So as you said it, they are basically tactics. They were not very confident also at the same time, when the film was getting released, they knew that something is going to go wrong. As a common man, common businessman, you do those tactics. How to save yourself? Anybody for that matter will do it,” he added.

In another interview, Govil opened up about the controversial dialogues of the film and said they are “not good” to hear. Political parties, actors, filmmakers, critics and audience slammed the makers for using “pedestrian language” for Gods, eventually forcing the makers to “revamp” the dialogues.

“That too being mouthed by characters we worship. To hear them say these lines it is not done. I didn’t quite like the image of Lord Ram shown in the film. There is a picture in our mind of Lord Ram that is kind, gentle, soft and ever-smiling but that doesn’t reflect in the character in the film. I don’t blame the actors here, it is on the creatives,” he told IndiaTV.

After a massive record-breaking weekend, Adipurush witnessed a steep drop on its first Monday, with collections dropping by a whopping 75 percent. The Hindi collections for the movie were in the range of Rs 8-9 crore nett, Box Office India reported. The four-day Hindi total of the film stands at Rs 113 crore nett.