Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha has opened up about his ambitious feature film Ra One, the superhero actioner led by Shah Rukh Khan which was one of the most anticipated movies of last decade– and also a major box office disappointment. The filmmaker, who had before that made films like Tum Bin and the hit Dus, said Shah Rukh gave his all for Ra One but perhaps he was too “enamoured” by the star he was directing.
During a Mashable India podcast with Mukesh Chhabra, Anubhav Sinha said he recently met Shah Rukh and the topic of their 2011 collaboration came up.
“I told him I was so enamoured by you– and a director shouldn’t be enamoured by his actor. I am from Varanasi, Sanjay Dutt was a star even before I entered films, while making Dus, I’d call him ‘Sanju’, then Shah Rukh became a star in front of me, he came to Mumbai around the same time as me. Then when he started becoming a star, I also became his fan.
“So by the time I worked with him, he was a bigger Shah Rukh Khan and I’d always wonder how can people have access to a star like him? By then mobile phones had come and I texted him one day, that I have a story which can only be made with him. Dus had released then and perhaps he’d have liked it. We held a meeting and he said let’s make the film.”
Shah Rukh Khan in a still from Ra One. (Photo: IMDb)
Anubhav said while mounting Ra One, which was billed as the biggest Indian film of the time, he realsied how generous and open Shah Rukh was as a producer. If Anubhav thought of having international singer Akon sing a song in Hindi, the superstar made it happen.
“The benefits of working with Shah Rukh Khan are immense. I called him and said, ‘ I want Akon,’ he said done. Never asked me why, or from where can he get him for me. He asked, ‘Akon will sing in Hindi? Ok let me see.’ Then one day in New York, while we had to catch a flight, he stopped at a hotel in Times Square and said there’s some work to be done. When we went to the top floor–a night club–Akon was sitting there. He was addressing me as ‘big man’.
“That’s the perk of working with him, but my weakness was that I was so enamoured by him that whatever he said, sounded gospel truth to me. Which shouldn’t happen. But that was my fault, not his.”
Shah Rukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor with Akon during the promotions of Ra One. (Photo: IMDb)
When the film opened to negative reviews in the Diwali of 2011, it became a target of “vicious” campaigns, where people started blaming the lack of talent of Sinha, who himself wondered, if he even knows how to direct a film. The negativity a so intense, the filmmaker recalled, that no one in the Hindi film industry was answering his phone call.
“After Ra One, people stopped answering my calls. Everything ended. When it released in 2011, it did a business of about Rs 150 cr but bohot burai hui thi meri, that I don’t know how to make a film. No one in Mumbai would answer my call, I had no work. This continued for five-six years. Then I produced a few films, because I thought I am not a director at all.
“The noise of Ra One was so massive, its promotion so expansive that I remember telling him, ‘Sir thoda kam kar do, otherwise people wil think you will now leap out of the screen.’ When people didn’t like the film, the post release noise was more than pre-release. There were vicious, malicious campaigns and that broke my heart– and back.”
Though Anubhav Sinha and Shah Rukh Khan never worked together after Ra One, the filmmaker has often spoken good of the superstar, including indulging the thought of mounting a sequel to Ra One.
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