Box-office pressure unreal for ‘Dangal’ director

By Natalia Ningthoujam

New Delhi, Sep 1 (IANS) The 2016 Aamir Khan-starrer blockbuster "Dangal" will stay in the hearts of many for its entertainment value. The film broke various records, one of them being crossing the Rs 2,000-crore mark at the global box-office -- a feat that is not easily achieved by Bollywood. The films director Nitesh Tiwari returns with his next directorial, "Chhichhore" soon. However, he isn't feeling the box-office pressure.

"As far as the box-office is concerned, we didn't know 'Dangal' would become such a huge success. We made 'Dangal' purely for the love of the story. We felt that the story needed to be told. We never kept the box-office result in mind, so there was never pressure when we made 'Dangal'," Tiwari told IANS.

"However, after the success of 'Dangal', the only pressure I would take would not be the box-office pressure. That would be unreal to have... to take that pressure. You can't say 'My film is going to perform so much at the box-office'. The only pressure and it is only human for me to feel that way is, I want to live up to the expectations of people. Whatever expectations they may have of me after 'Dangal'. I hope I will be successful in exceeding their expectations."

After narrating the inspiring story of a wrestler in "Dangal", Tiwari is set to take the audience back to his college days in "Chhichhore".

Unlike "Dangal", which had superstar Aamir, his new film has a young cast, including Sushant Singh Rajput, Varun Sharma, Tushar Pandey, Prateik Babbar and Shraddha Kapoor.

On finalising the cast, he said: "All of them needed to be great performers. It was something that was a given. The way I write most of my stories, there is a lot of scope for interesting performances. I was looking for people in a specific age category so that if I cut down a few years from them, they would look like college-going kids and if I add a few years, they would look like middle-aged people effortlessly. That's why I kind of migrated towards actors who are in their early 30s."

It is a college buddy film and the director has extracted a lot of stuff from his IIT days. Does it also deal with bullying?

"It touches upon various aspects of college life and hostel life in a positive manner. It's all what I lived. We were made to feel extremely comfortable when we were juniors at IIT Bombay," he said of his time in the prestigious engineering institute where he even got to shoot a portion of the film.

"I consider myself fortunate (to have got the chance to shoot inside IIT). I got to shoot where the germ (of the idea) originated. But mostly, I shot all over Mumbai," said Tiwari, a fan of shooting at real locations. That sadly, won't be possible for his next big-budget film.

Tiwari and Ravi Udyawar - who directed "Mom" - are set to helm a 3D version of the "Ramayan". With an estimated budget of Rs 500 crore, this will be a live-action trilogy in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

"The location doesn't exist, so I can't shoot in a real location. I'll have to create that," he said with a smile.

The project is unlike any of his past films, in terms of genre or budget.
"Physically, it will be very different, but emotionally it follows the same pattern that I follow - (my films are) all great human stories. And 'Ramayan' is a fabulous human story on relationships," said the "Chillar Party" director.

Why "Ramayan" -- a story that has been repeatedly told, especially on the small screen?

"I think we don't really remember too much of the 'Ramayan'. What happened back then on TV was fine. Time has passed, many people only know 'Ramayan' at a surface level. If you dig deeper, it is far more beautiful than what it seems on the surface. People need to know the essence of 'Ramayan'," said Tiwari.

(Natalia Ningthoujam can be contacted atnatalia.n@ians.in)