The last time Ashutosh Gowariker made a historical epic, the world was a very different place. Facebook was far from being the government-toppling behemoth it is today, YouTube was three years old and Instagram wasn't even an embryo. Netflix had delivered its billionth DVD the previous year and Barack Obama's biggest concern was that he wasn't going to be able to keep his BlackBerry after he became President. Let's take a moment to review that. Netflix. was. a. DVD. rental. company. So when Jodhaa Akbar released in 2008, it released... it didn't drop.

It had been eight years since Gowariker was nominated for the Academy Awards but somehow, at the time, it seemed like it was just the previous year. He had since made just one movie, Swades (2004) and Jodhaa Akbar was a hotly anticipated film from an Oscar-nominated director. The sheen of accolades seemed to last longer back then, somehow. Even if Jodhaa Akbar had been a mediocre film, the Oscar-nominated tag suspended between two olive branches, would've been sufficient to carry it through. It gave Gowariker the liberty to indulge himself. Jodhaa Akbar ran for three hours and 20 minutes. He'd justified it back then saying the genre and the scale required that kind of runtime. Gowariker's next, Panipat, that marks his return to the genre runs at two hours and 45 minutes.