Chandu Champion director Kabir Khan on sports films not doing well in Bollywood: ‘They will be remembered after 15 years’ 

Kartik Aaryan will be seen essaying the role of Paralympic gold medalist Murlikant Petkar

In Chandu Champion, which will be released on June 14, the story transcends many years, encompassing Petkar’s journey from a boy considered ‘crazy’ to serving in the army, winning gold for the country, and his life in old age. The director had to create different looks for Kartik to chronicle different stages of Petkar’s life. “Sometimes, we had to show the naive boyish charm, and as the story progressed, you see him play an 80-year-old. So there is a whole arc for Kartik to perform,” Kabir explained, adding that while writing the script, he kept thinking of Kartik.

Murlikant Petkar (right) with Southern Army Commander Lt Gen Ajai Kumar Singh. (Express File Photo)

“When I was sketching the character and thinking about the age, attitude, and personality of the actor who will essay Petkar, I thought Kartik would be a perfect fit. I trusted my gut feeling even though I hadn’t worked with Kartik before. He fulfilled the two criteria—he was ready to get his hair cut and undergo a rigorous body transformation,” narrated the Tubelight director, adding that creating an image of a person who was almost unknown to the world was an uphill task.

 

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“Petkar is a forgotten hero and nothing on him exists. We make biopics on very well-known heroes; even I have made a film on Kapil Dev, who is arguably one of the best sportspersons to come out of this country. Everybody knows him—what he looks like, how he walks, and talks. And here we were talking about a man who is so forgotten that there are no images of him from the time he represented India at the Paralympics and won those medals. A bulk of the film is based on a period of his life, and we have no images from that time,” Kabir said.

Kartik Aaryan at the wrap of Kabir Khan-directorial Chandu Champion. (Photo: Kartik Aaryan/Instagram)

In recent years, Bollywood has made several sports biopics, but only a handful have managed to score well. The recent box-office debacle of Maidaan and a horde of other films in the genre is proof that despite big budgets, films based on sports have very few takers. Kabir’s 2021 film, 83, which was released amid the COVID-19 pandemic, didn’t perform as expected despite a stellar cast and a lot of curiosity around the film.

Maidaan, directed by Amit Sharma, is based on the life of Syed Abdul Rahim, a former Indian football coach. The film explores Rahim’s career as a coach and his contributions to Indian football.

“I don’t agree with the segmentation of films into sports biopics, thrillers, and love stories. At the end of the day, it is a human story. Of course, some human stories, the way they’re told, will bring in more people to the theatre, and others will bring in fewer people. But all of these stories made on sports have a deep resonance with the audience, and that is the reason more and more of these films are being made worldwide, and some of them are doing extremely well. They’re being highly spoken about and will be remembered for years to come,” asserts Kabir.

Ranveer Singh plays Kapil Dev in Kabir Khan’s 83.

He emphasises that one is quick to judge if a film is a success or a failure and urges that one needs to see if these films have aged well with time. “I have often said that films ultimately need to be judged years later. Many blockbusters are quickly forgotten and are in our minds for only a week, but some films didn’t score well, however, we will remember them 15 years later.”

The screenwriter and director advises the audience not to depend completely on sports as the sole narrative to bring them to the theatre. “These are films with sports serving as a backdrop. A film cannot be about sports. It is the amount of human emotion of the person and athlete and what they go through that really forms the bulk of Chandu Champion,” he adds.

83, directed by Kabir Khan, revolves around the Indian cricket team that brought the World Cup home in 1983. (Photo: APH Images)

Asked how he deals with failures, he promptly replies, “Being a sportsperson has made me level-headed and taught me that you win one day and you lose one day, and that is not the end of the world. After failure, you get back on the field and strive again. Likewise, in life too, I follow the same mantra, especially in our profession where our highs are extremely high and our lows can be disastrously low. If you don’t fly high when you’re successful, you won’t fall hard when you fail.”