Excel Entertainment head Ritesh Sidhwani on the successful year that was 2017 and plans for 2018
MUMBAI MIRROR (December 26, 2017)

You began 2017 with the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Raees, followed by Inside Edge and now Fukrey Returns. How has the year been for you?
It’s gratifying to see that you had a film like Raees where you take a big superstar like Shah Rukh Khan and make him do something that is so different from what he has done before. It makes you feel good about the fact that you tried to do something different and it paid off. Then we stepped into a different medium with Inside Edge, which has done extremely well too. I have been told that it’s in the top 2 or 3 most downloaded shows and in the completion rate, where people began watching the show and saw the entire season. Amazon was impressed, which is why for the first time we are commissioning season 2 and 3 simultaneously. We are shooting both the seasons in 2018, though it will be released at a gap of 6 to 8 months.

Fukrey Returns also did well at the box office…
Fukrey was a sleeper hit in 2013 and people had lapped it up on TV as well, because of which its reach had amplified many folds. I think it’s amazing to see so much love for a small film, which has gone on to make such big numbers.

There is a lot of pressure on sequels to live up to the original. What challenges did you face while making Fukrey Returns?
Interestingly, after its theatrical run, when Fukrey had released on TV, I got a lot of messages on my social media platforms wanting to know what happened with Bholi and the other parts. I spoke with Mrig (Mrighdeep Lamba, director-writer) and Vipul (Vipul Vig, writer) to think about a sequel. When they came back with the story, we were very impressed.

Is a third part on the cards too?
You will be amazed to know how many people on Twitter and Instagram have sent me story ideas for the third part. Though I haven’t had the time to sit with the writers, we would definitely like to take the franchise forward.

The Fukrey merchandise including comic books, phone covers and t-shirts too have created immense buzz…
Yes, in fact, I recently got a message from the Shoppers Stop team for placing an additional order.

What should we expect from the upcoming seasons of Inside Edge?
In season 1, there is an interesting character called Bhai Saab, what we do with him will be revealed in the next season. Karan Anshuman won’t be directing the upcoming seasons as he is busy with another web series called Mirzapur that features Ali Fazal and Vikrant Massey and is also running our writers room.

So on the digital front, what’s next for 2018?
We have a few shows planned already. Besides Mirzapur, we also have Made In Heaven, which is created by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti and will be helmed by interesting directors including Zoya, Alankrita Shrivastava, Nitya Mehra and Prashant Nair.

And what are the films slated for the next year?
The first one is 3 Storeys, which releases in February, then there is Gold on August 15 with Akshay Kumar. We also have Gully Boy with Zoya who will start filming from January 14 with Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt. Ranveer is amazing to work with and has terrific energy, while this is our first collaboration with Alia. We’ll be announcing the rest of the cast by next week.

Is Don 3 in the making too?
We are definitely going to make Don 3. Earlier if you had asked me, I would have said no, but now we do have an idea and we are working towards it. Shah Rukh will obviously be a part of the film, but we’ll zero down on the rest of the cast after the script is locked.

Lasyapriya Sundaram (BOMBAY TIMES; December 7, 2017)

After delivering the sleeper hit Fukrey (2013), the makers are back with its sequel, Fukrey Returns. Ask director Mrighdeep Singh Lamba what prompted the sequel and he says that the success of the first film in the franchise was the main factor. He adds, After Fukrey, characters like Hunny (Pulkit Samrat), Choocha (Varun Sharma), Bholi Punjaban (Richa Chadha) and Lali (Manjot Singh) became popular.

Clearly, people wanted to see more of them. In fact, we toyed with the idea of making a prequel as well. That’s how Fukrey Returns materialised. Producer Ritesh Sidhwani explains, “It’s a sequel in the true sense of the word because this film starts exactly one year after the first one comes to a close. The world of the film is still the same. The situations and conflicts in the narrative have become bigger. It’s a comedy that one can enjoy with the entire family. It’s not crude and neither will it make one cringe. The dialogues are spontaneous, clean, fun and replete with one-liners. The characters in Fukrey Returns don’t take themselves seriously and that’s what's unique about the film.”

Over the years, filmmakers have created their own space in comedy within the genre. While the 1980s saw Hrishikesh Mukherjee eliciting a chuckle with the world he created, with characters close to reality, filmmaker David Dhawan opted for the slapstick variety and wanted the audience to guffaw or laugh out loud in the 1990s. Ask Mrighdeep how he would define the Fukrey kind of comedy and pat comes the reply, “Ram Gopal Varma infused his own style into the genre of crime dramas, changed the grammar and made it real. Similarly, in the genre of comedies, Fukrey Returns is set in a real world. The film speaks the language of real people and the kind of problems that they would perhaps face.” Talking of the comedies being made in Bollywood, Ritesh elaborates, “I think comedies are being made on a regular basis. Earlier, there were actors who specialised in this genre. Now, all the actors in a film have to be able to pull off a comic role. Honestly, it also depends on the audience's threshold for humour.”

Apart from the characters, what worked in favour of the first film in the franchise was the distinct North Indian milieu, which struck the right chord with the audience. Mrighdeep says, “The writer (Vipul Vig) and I belong to Delhi. So, we are familiar with the flavour that we infuse the film with. It is easy to convey to the cast members as well because most of them are from the North.” Ask him how he managed to retain the North Indian nuances and yet ensure that it was palatable for one and all and he adds, “We have revised some of the dialogues, which were too ‘theth’. It’s not intentional, it comes naturally.” Ritesh explains, “The flavour is distinct and yet universal. If the guy sitting next to me is laughing at the dialogues and I am left wondering why it’s connecting with him and not with me because I don’t understand the meaning of the words, then that becomes a deterrent. When you are making a pan-India film, the emotions have to be conveyed in a lingo that everyone can understand, but at the same time, we don’t compromise on the flavour.”

Making a sequel, which entirely relies on the popularity of its characters and the success of the first film in the franchise means that the budget has to be reasonable to set the cash registers ringing. Ritesh admits that he never insists on having conversations with his directors regarding the budget of the film and says, “I have never discussed the budget with Mrighdeep. He discussed it with the executive producer. As producers, we ensure that even in the worst-case scenario, the film achieves a certain number at the box office. We work out the budget backwards. Also, one needs to make sure that even if nobody ends up making money, no one should lose money either. You cannot be a part of films only to make money; you have to be driven by passion. With Fukrey Returns, we have upped the scale.”