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Anubhav Sinha’s last couple of releases received positive reviews but little interest at the box office. While Anek (2022), starring Ayushmann Khurrana and Andrea Kevichusa, tanked at the box office with a collection of Rs 9 crore, Bheed (2023) with Bhumi Pednekar and Rajkummar Rao in the lead roles earned just Rs 2.1 crore. The filmmaker accepted he was in a dark place but eventually returned to the director’s chair with Netflix’s IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.
In an interview with indianexpress.com, the 59-year-old filmmaker discussed the emotional impact of creating a critically acclaimed film, which fails to resonate with audiences. He said, “It almost discourages you from making more movies. It breaks your heart, it breaks your backbone. You lose confidence. You almost get encouraged not to make a film again. But then something else convinces you enough to do it again and then you look back and say, ‘No, it’s not a big deal, it’s okay.'”
He explained, “I had three back-to-back hits and then I had two films that didn’t work and those were also strange times and I was making a dark film (Bheed) on Corona tragedy, and in black-and-white, it didn’t work. It’s okay. As long as you are not ashamed of your film, as long as people who participated with you in that film are not ashamed, you take it in your stride. When you read or write history, you turn a page, and you have gone past a decade in the history of filmmaking, so don’t take yourself that seriously.”
“You make 10 films, and if you end up making five films that are hit then you are doing rather fine,” the Thappad filmmaker added. The filmmaker also talked about the current state of Bollywood, which hasn’t delivered many hits except a handful like Munjya and Stree 2 this year. The director laughed as he said, “The only guy who knows the way out of this phase today is Dinesh Vijan.”
He then said, “Every industry goes through these phases. It’s not a big deal. It will be fine. They will not stop watching films, we will not stop making films. There are days and weeks when the films don’t do well, and then there are times when they do well. Such is life.”
When asked what is the biggest challenge a filmmaker faces, the director said, “Selling a story”.
Referring to Dinesh Vijan’s films Munjya and Stree 2, Anubhav Sinha said, “There are two horror films that have become hits, and you are trying to make a film that rejects the idea of supernatural, now it is difficult to sell. ‘Are you nuts, everybody believes in supernatural, look at the amount of business they are doing’, but then you have to sell it because you believe in it and want to make it. The most challenging thing is the strange mix of being convinced and conning someone. You have to convince people to invest money in your project.” Anubhav Sinha is gearing up for a big-budget Bollywood film but refused to share the details at present.
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