After Kaamyaab, What’s Next for SRK’s Red Chillies Entertainment?

Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment banks on the star’s experience and the talent of first timers.

Red Chillies Entertainment’s latest release, Kaamyaab, is unlike any other film it has backed before. The company founded by Shah Rukh Khan in 2003 has largely produced massive SRK entertainers like Om Shanti Om, Chennai Express and Zero, which is why Kaamyaab, a small film featuring Sanjay Mishra and Deepak Dobriyal, stands out in that list. However, that’s the way things are going to roll from now, says Gaurav Verma, Chief Operating Officer at RCE.

Gaurav, who has been part of the RCE family since 2014, says the company spent a few years in consolidating itself and is now all set to deep dive into creating diverse content. “Ittefaq released in 2017, so from 2016 we have been at it, the idea is to back good cinema, different stories, irrespective of size, scale and genre. We wanted to associate with Kaamyaab and it’s a beautiful film, which we wanted bring out to as large an audience as possible,” Gaurav tells me.

He also adds that they are focusing on telling stories and taking them to consumers in every possible form be it theatrical or digital. “So you will see a Bard of Blood, you will see Betaal, which is coming up now shortly, then you have Class of ‘83, again a digital film. We also have Bob Biswas, which is coming up and a couple of more announcements are due,” he declares giving us a peek at the company’s slate.

So what have the folks at RCE been up to before they bankrolled Ittefaq in 2016? The idea apparently has been to consolidate and move towards building a studio gradually, to do more films with Shah Rukh Khan and outside as well. “Our focus was to build monetisation capabilities in-house, to deal with television partners, music partners, digital partners, theatrical partners, both in India and overseas. To be able to market our own films. If you look back, there was a lot of dependence on studios between 2007 - 2015, where you had multiple studios like UTV, Studio 18, Eros, 20th Century Fox and others, they used to dominate the business, so to distribute a film you had to go through them. The idea was to build our own pipeline, our own network of distributors, make our own relationship with platforms. In the last 6 years we have done a lot of that. We have been able to develop those relationships, nurture them, now we are pretty much independent so to say,” reveals Gaurav.

Unlike Red Chillies Entertainment’s previous massive hits like Om Shanti Om and Chennai Express, their last outing with Shah Rukh Khan, Zero, didn’t find favour among the audience. I recall having an informal chat with SRK on his birthday in 2018, when he met a bunch of journalists right before the release of Zero. The actor passionately discussed the making of the film - the challenges they faced in filming him as a vertically challenged person, the unavailability of hi-tech equipment in India which eventually made him buy a state-of-the-art camera (that cost a bomb) from Hollywood to make Zero possible.

So, how does the company cope when a project that you have invested so much in eventually fails at the box-office? “There are not many people who invest back into the business, Shah Rukh Khan believes that we need to continuously invest back in the business,” replies Gaurav, “Be it in the form of VFX, because the VFX is not just for us, it's largely taking up the level of VFX across the industry that we are a part of. Likewise, we have built a beautiful facility for post-production, which again gives quality output for everyone not just us. Just like that, you spoke about the equipment, the camera - it's not just for us, everyone can use it in this industry. So, the idea is to give back to the business. For someone like Shah Rukh Khan, he is not just investing in his own films, the idea is to push the envelope in terms of quality and scale for the industry at large to benefit from it, that's something he believes in”.

Regarding Zero’s inability to perform at the box-office, Gaurav says that they were disappointed that the film didn’t do well, but that’s how the business is - some stories work, some don’t and all you can do is move on and learn from your failures.

And how much time does Shah Rukh Khan devote to looking into the daily affairs at Red Chillies Entertainment? “Well, Shah Rukh has been the promoter, founding father and guiding light for us. If we have anything which we want to back, if we take it to him, Shah Rukh’s insight to the business is something that you look forward to. Every idea that we want to make and every film that we want to put out, every series that we want to do, he is involved in, creatively as well as aesthetically, his inputs are extremely valuable. Where will I find someone who can give me an experience of 30 years, having worked with so many directors across the spectrum with so many films?” asks Gaurav.

But it’s not just SRK’s experience they are counting on, the company is also giving a platform to several first timers. Gaurav tells me that Red Chillies Entertainment is working with a lot of first time directors and writers, “The idea is to create and increase the available talent pool, so in the next 5 years you’ll see a lot more first time directors and writers coming from RCE,” he says on a parting note.

What’s Coming Up From Red Chillies Entertainment:

• Bob Biswas: A spin off from the popular character of Bob Biswas, the contract killer in Sujoy Ghosh’s cult thriller Kahaani, Bob Biswas is directed by debutant Diya Annapurna Ghosh and features Abhishek Bachchan in the lead.
• Class of ‘83: Directed by Atul Sabharwal, Class of ‘83 is an original Netflix film featuring Bobby Deol as a police officer and deals with encounter specialists who brought down Mumbai’s infamous underworld.
• Betaal: Starring Vineet Kumar, Aahana Kumra and Suchitra Pillai, Betaal is a web series for Netflix in which a centuries-old British Indian army officer and his zombie redcoats battle modern-day cops in a remote village.