'Manorama Six Feet Under' could’ve made Rs 5-6 crore: Abhay Deol
Fashion designer Manish Malhotra is stepping into film production with his banner ‘Stage 5 Production’. He is gearing up for the release of ‘Gustaakh Ishq’, a romantic drama directed by Vibhu Puri and starring Vijay Varma and Fatima Sana Shaikh, which arrives in cinemas on November 28. His other production, ‘Bun Tikki’, directed by Faraz Arif Ansari and featuring Shabana Azmi and Abhay Deol, is already earning attention at film festivals.
Malhotra doesn’t feel he’s taking a chance with ‘Gustaakh Ishq’ at a time when such a film is usually relegated to streaming. “I don’t feel like I’m taking a chance, but a lot of people feel why don’t you think of taking it directly to a streaming platform. But I say no, it’s got beautiful music and good visuals. I want to release it in the theatre. Now, if the film does well, people would say, ‘Visionary!’ But if the film, God forbid, doesn’t do well, people would say, ‘I told you so’. But for me, it’s not about the film doing well or not,” confessed the fashion designer.
Divyendu Sharma, who’ll be seen in the Stage 5 Production’s ‘Ye Saali Mohabbat’, which marks the directorial debut of Tisca Chopra, feels casting a star is in fact even a riskier proposal. Fathima Sana Shaikh, however, believes not every well-intentioned film with a good story and decent actors always works. To that, Abhay Deol claimed that a film also needs to be marketed well to reach its audience.
He quoted the example of his 2007 thriller, Navdeep Singh’s ‘Manorama Six Feet Under’. “We made Rs 3 crore at that time. It could’ve made Rs 5-6 crore easily. But they had 60 screens and marketing worth Rs 25 lakh. No one’s going to come then. It was always a struggle to put a film out there. Over the 20 years I’ve been here, it’s become more and more insecure instead of secure. You thought corporatisation would democratise it. While it did for a bit, they retracted because even the people working at corporates are looking more at numbers,” claimed Deol.
