Dunki director Rajkumar Hirani has said that the commercial success of the film matters, but a filmmaker can't just focus on that and let that colour their vision. In an interview with PTI, Hirani further said that he is happy people have praised his efforts to tell a human story at a time when the audience is flocking to the theatres to watch action movies.
The Shah Rukh Khan, Taapsee Pannu-starrer has so far collected Rs 340 crore at the global box office.
In a Zoom interview with PTI, Hirani said, "Of course, commercial success matters to me but I try not focus on it at all because the moment you start focusing on it, then you start colouring the kind of film you want to make.…"
"I take three or four years to make a film. This time I took five years to make a story. It should be like... let me make this film whatever the fate of the film is. Sometimes you will get a universal audience, sometimes you will get an audience which is in smaller pockets. India is a massive country and there will be all kinds of audiences liking all kinds of films," the agency quoted the director as saying.
Hirani also spoke about working with Shah Rukh Khan. SRK was the first choice for Munnabhai MBBS & 3 Idiots. The director said that more than him, his mother was happy he was finally collaborating with the superstar.
“After my last film Sanju, we started meeting more often. During COVID-19 times when not much work was happening, he asked me, ‘What are you working on?’ I said, ‘I’ve these two-three ideas.’ I narrated all the ideas to him and he got fascinated with this one and he was like, if this one develops then let’s do it."
"So, it happened organically. All I can say is I had complete joy working with him. As Abhijat (Joshi, writer) describes Shah Rukh, he says, ‘This man is pure love’. I had a very happy experience of not only working with him as an actor but also as a human being."
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)