Director Amit Rai revealed that his ambitious Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj biopic with Shahid Kapoor has fallen apart. The OMG 2 director criticised the industry, saying it backs stars over stories
Shahid Kapoor
In 2024, director Amit Rai came close to realising his wish of helming a historical drama on the life of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Shahid Kapoor was attached to play the Maratha warrior. But a year on, things have changed. Rai, who last helmed OMG 2 (2023), reveals that the biopic is off the table. Reason? He pegs it down evasively to the “cruel system”.
“The system is so cruel. Even if you have proved your mettle with a R180 crore film [OMG 2], it’s not enough,” he says exasperatedly. While the director doesn’t specify why it fell through, he admits he felt helpless as the biopic — written by him — went from being one of the most ambitious projects to the shredder. “How is a director supposed to work here, under these systems of casting, production, star, and management? You live with a story for five years, and within minutes, somebody writes a five-pager, pointing out what is wrong and what is right in the film.”
Amit Rai
The experience made him realise that turning producer was the only way ahead. So, for his next, Dharma that revolves around a child and a dog, Rai relied on no one but himself and his hunger to tell the social drama. He felt validated when Hungarian cinematographer Máté Herbai and popular Hollywood action and motion-capture specialist Isaac Hamon came on board. “I did four months of casting, [called] the action director I like the most and said that I have a story, but I don’t have money. [So many] people agreed just on the basis of our story.”
While his OMG 2 actor Pankaj Tripathi is part of the film, Akshay Kumar too had expressed interest in it (Akshay asked me why I did not pitch the film to him, July 16). But Rai says that the two actors are generous, a rarity in Bollywood where landing stars for a movie can be crushing. “An actor will only do what’s working at the box office. Very few actors were honest to me. Sometimes, they weren’t interested in being part of a film that’s speaking the truth about society, and instead wanted to do a love story. But when I took a love story to them, they said, ‘This is an expensive film, this is a period love story.’ So, the criterion kept changing. [The truth is that] they will say yes to you once you enter their circle.”
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