Vivek Agnihotri says he knew Vaccine War will lack sting at box office as it doesn’t have ‘politics’: ‘I made it for Rs 10 cr, many did it for free’

He added that The Vaccine War was never going to do as well as The Kashmir Files did last year. “It will be unrealistic on my part to assume that this will grow like The Kashmir Files because that film had reached the collective conscience of every person from top to the bottom. This is a science film on vaccines. Honestly, there shouldn’t have been a feature film on this. But we made it because we felt this story needed to be told. But this film does not have that politics. It is a very straightforward, positive, beautiful film. This is a different genre.”

Agnihotri said that he’d anticipated a muted response, which is why he kept costs low on the film. “Since I knew its scope is not as much, we made this film in Rs 10 crore. We could have made it bigger, kept the budget at Rs 50 crore. But we cut costs and thankfully Nana cut down heavily on his fees. Many came without accepting money for it, which is how we were able to make it for Rs 10 crore. So, I knew that even if it comes to the worst, it will recover that much money at the box office,” he said, adding that the film has already recovered its costs through digital and satellite rights.

The Kashmir Files opened to Rs 3.5 crore, but the word-of-mouth appreciation for it was almost meteoric. By its third day of release, the film was doing business of more than Rs 15 crore, and it actually ended up having a better second week than first. Ultimately, The Kashmir Files made Rs 252 crore in India, according to industry tracker Sacnilk. The Vaccine War, on the other hand, will be lucky to match the lifetime total of Agnihotri’s 2019 conspiracy thriller The Tashkent Files, which made Rs 16 crore in India during its theatrical run. The Vaccine War stars Nana Patekar, Pallavi Joshi, Raima Sen, Sapthami Gowda, and Anupam Kher in key roles.