Hindi, Girlfriend, Moustaches: When Bollywood Directors Blamed Everyone And Everything But Themselves For The Failure Of Their Films

Filmmaking is tricky. It is the marriage of art and commerce that works beautifully when it does, but then there are times it fails spectacularly. For makers of the films, especially the directors, who are essentially the captains of the creative ship, it is difficult to not take the failures, especially at the box office, personally.

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While there are several instances where directors have taken box-office failures of their films on the chin and even contemplated on what they could have done differently, there are a few who have come back with really questionable defences as to why their films did not work. Here are a few:

A.R. Murgadoss Sikander

Recently, when talking about his last film Sikander starring Salman Khan and Rashmika Mandanna, the director opened up about why he thought the film did poorly at the box-office. But instead of critically looking at poor scripting and screenplay that actually plagued the film, he blamed his lack of grasp on Hindi as the primary factors. The director, who has already directed Hindi films such Ghajini, Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty, and Akira, said, “After we write the script, it’s translated into English. Then it is again translated into Hindi. We can only guess what they are saying, but we are not exactly sure about what is happening. When you make a film in an unknown language and place, it feels like you are handicapped. It is like you don’t have hands.”

Fighter

Deepika Padukone and Hrithik Roshan as drop-dead gorgeous leads, a story with a patriotic angle, snazzy aerial cinematography, fighter jets – what could go wrong, right? Turns out a lot. Fighter directed by Siddharth Anand, while not a flop entirely, did not perform as per expectation and was criticized for indulging in cliches and melodrama. But Siddharth Anand was convinced that certain criticism against the film had deeper reasons. In an interview he said, “If you realize, there is a huge percentage of our country... I would say 90% who have not flown in planes! Who have not been to an airport! So how do you expect them to know what's happening in the air?” referring to the many aerial combat scenes in the film. Go figure!

Koyla 

This one might come as a shock to legions of Madhuri Dixit fans who have grown up swooning over the actor. Back in 1997, Koyla directed by Rakesh Roshan, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit failed at the box-office. According to reports, this led to Rakesh Roshan being disappointed and blaming Madhuri Dixit ‘for not being pretty enough” to win over the audience. Interestingly, the very same year Madhuri won the Filmfare in the Best Actress category for Dil To Pagal Hai and has gone on to become one of the most timeless and iconic beauties of Bollywood.

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Samrat Prithviraj

Director Chandraprakash Dwivedi had a lot on his plate when he planned to bring the glorious story of Samrat Prithviraj on-screen. The film clearly did not translate his vision and he reportedly blamed the lead of the film, Akshay Kumar for its failure. In an interview, he mentioned that makers had doubts about certain aspects and did raise objections. He said, “They were objecting to how Akshay was looking in the film. One of the objections was about how the actress (Manushi Chillar) was so much younger and Akshay, who was 55 then, was playing the role of a 26-year-old king. Then there was a question about his moustache as to why did he not have a real moustache. They even said that the frame of his body was nothing like Prithviraj. Today, honestly, I would like to confess that most of these objections were right.” 

Himmatwala

Before the release of his film Himmatwala, starring Ajay Devgn and Tamannah Bhatia, Sajid Khan had some big claims. A remake of the 1983 hit film by the same name starring Jeetendra and Sridevi, Khan claimed that it would be a blockbuster and his dialogues maybe better than that of the original penned by Kader Khan. However, the film went on to become a dud at the box-office. Years later, when talking about the failure of the films and his break up with Jacqueline Fernandez, he said “While we broke up in May 2013, in reality right from December 2012, it started becoming sour. So you are already preparing your mind in those five months. Also, when you don’t have a woman in your life, you don’t have someone constantly nagging you, so you end up working better and are more focused. I went for a holiday with her for five days in the middle of making Himmatwala and felt so bad when the film didn’t do well.” Wow!