Sriram Raghavan discusses Agent Vinod’s failure, says he gets ‘tempted by a sequel’ to the Saif Ali Khan film

Sriram Raghavan has made some acclaimed films like Johnny Gaddar, Andhadhun, Ek Hasina Thi in his career but the one that really shocked his fans was the 2012 film Agent Vinod. The Saif Ali Khan movie was a disappointment for critics and fans. In a recent chat, Sriram discussed the reason as to why the film did not work.

Sriram said that he does “get tempted by a sequel to Agent Vinod” and shared that the Saif-Kareena film focused more on the sequences, instead of the story. In a chat with Galatta Plus, he said, “One mistake I made is to take it for granted that the story is not vital, the sequences are vital.” Had Agent Vinod done well, it could have been the start of a spy franchise but the film did not yield any such results. “I mean if you take Octopussy, what is the story of Octopussy? I’ll get lost somewhere in between but watching it is great fun. But that approach is good for a Bond (film) which is already a franchise. Saif and me, we made the mistake of… we should have been making the first Bond, Dr No, which is a fairly realistic film in its own way,” he said.

Sriram Raghavan said that no one talks about Agent Vinod when he is invited to give a lecture but he still likes to talk about the film and admitted that “it wasn’t as good as it should have been.”

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He shared that it was Saif Ali Khan who had the title of the film and he instantly loved the title. “I loved the title so I thought it will be a nice camp movie. That was my whole thing,” he said. The Andhadhun director said that instead of being a “heady cocktail” it turned out to be a “headache” and the film became “exhausting”. “Otherwise, it has some terrific sequences. I still enjoy watching some of them,” he concluded.

Sriram Raghavan’s next is Merry Christmas starring Vijay Sethupathi and Katrina Kaif.