The brilliant director Aanand L Rai had a career filled with outstanding achievements and tragic failures. However, this hasn’t stopped the filmmaker from becoming one of Bollywood’s most sought-after talents. Raksha Bandhan, the last film directed by Aanand L Rai and starring Akshay Kumar, was a critical and commercial flop. Audiences criticized the movie for its out-of-date nature of the content and overly melodramatic storyline.
According to Aanand L Rai, Raksha Bandhan’s failure was due to his attempt to bracket the movie, he said in a new interview with the news agency PTI. “I was wrong while making Raksha Bandhan when I thought let me give them something more of India and let me cater to the audience in the B and C tier cities. I was wrong in differentiating between the audiences. That is not my job. I should have focused more on the story rather than selecting the audience to whom I want to cater,” stated Aanand.
He went on to say, “This is my learning from the film. We are trying to discover what story will engage the audience at this moment and in this phase. Post-pandemic, we have failed the audience with that. Maybe, I went too smart with Raksha Bandhan. I was trying to put it in a bracket, which went wrong. It was my fastest film, but I relished it. I never made this film in a rush. I had fun. I was always gutsy and never played safe. But I think subconsciously, I tried to do that with Raksha Bandhan and failed miserably. I learned I should keep doing my work without thinking of the box office.”
In December, the director plans to launch An Action Hero, his forthcoming production. Director Anirudh Iyer’s action thriller stars Ayushmann Khurrana in a significant role and Jaideep Ahlawat in an important one. The filmmaker is also preparing the script for his forthcoming film, which is expected to be an action-packed love story.
Source: PTI
