Milap Zaveri feels John Abraham’s action scenes in Satyameva Jayate 2 had same ‘conviction’ as Jr NTR’s RRR, but…

Filmmaker Milap Zaveri has directed three action films in the past few years — Satyameva Jayate, Marjaavaan and Satyameva Jayate 2. While Satyameva Jayate and Marjaavaan did commercially well, Satyameva Jayate 2 proved to be a box office dud. Starring John Abraham in three roles (of twins and their father), the film could only do a total business of Rs 13.26 crore. Zaveri blames the film’s failure on its weak story. He also accepts that it was his overconfidence after Marjaavaan’s success which led to a no-show of the audience for Satyameva Jayate 2.

In a recent interview, Zaveri compared Satyameva Jayate 2’s action sequences with the ones in SS Rajamouli’s RRR and Yash’s KGF. He believes the ‘conviction’ in his action sequences was the same as RRR, it was only the story which lagged. He told Bollywood Hungama, “I went too over the top with the action. It was trolled a lot. The same kind of action was seen in RRR and KGF as well. John lifted the bike with two hands. But Jr NTR sir, in RRR, lifted the bike with one hand. The conviction was the same but the story was better in those films. There were great dialogues, action, music etc. in Satyameva Jayate 2 but I feel I failed at the story level.”

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Zaveri also admitted to not listening to the suggestions of the film’s producer Nikkhil Advani who warned him about Satyameva Jayate 2 lacking a strong antagonist. He was only keen on ‘scaling up’ the action sequences. He felt, “John ne part 1 mein tyre faada tha. Iss baar main usse engine ukhaad waaunga’. (In part 1, John tore apart a tyre, this time I wanted him to uproot an engine). Nikkhil Advani had rightly pointed out, ‘There’s no antagonist in the film’.”

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Going forward, Zaveri plans to focus more on the story of his films and also keep a place for a strong villain in them.

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Also starring Divya Khosla Kumar, Satyameva Jayate 2 was produced by T-Series Films and Emmay Entertainment. The film was delayed multiple times due to the pandemic and finally hit the screen in November 2021, when theaters were running at 50 per cent capacity.