The team of Kabir Khan’s directorial 83 had to wait nearly two years to release the film because all theaters across the country had been closed for most of the pandemic. The film starring Ranveer Singh as Kapil Dev was released on December 24 but this proved to be too little too late when reports showed a sudden increase in CoVID-19 cases and government officials quickly started banning public gatherings or restricting entry into certain areas – including theaters.
Critics applauded 83 but no one can forget how close we came to succumbing altogether due to this virus that penetrated through screens and entered our homes. Speaking recently at an event, Kabir said This movie really resonates with audiences around the world who want to see what life would’ve been like without [the] virus – because it’s possible now. He further added It has done so well commercially which shows you what lack of screening does.
When questioned about the obvious correlation between recent social events and the success of his movie, he gave this response: The point is that when we premiered there were just 2 states under curfew (daytime) due to recent civil unrest. In just 2 days 6 other states cancelled screenings at night time. Within 4 days New Delhi had halted all theater performances.
Now you can see why it would make sense for us to be hurt by this – not only because theaters were closed off but also because people became too scared or paranoid to go out and enjoy our movie. But despite those hurdles, on day 7 new cases were reported; rising from 6000 a day up to 100000+! I mean how could my film’s release date have been worse? Honestly, my work has become quite victimized by this third surge.
When asked about the marketing of his film, he said I mean… that is something I’ve heard. There were some unconscious decisions made when deciding what avenues to explore for marketing. For example, we weren’t pushing ourselves too far outside of our comfort zone just in case a pandemic broke out. So instead we concentrated on making sure people came together and talked openly with each other– but it wasn’t as though these weren’t done consciously.
He continued Having said that, this particular decision worked very well given where things stand now; and so while looking back over whether or not those choices went according to plan is a worthwhile endeavor at some point down the line, right now all I can do is take stock in how effective they ended up being. Which was quite successful actually– if you ask anyone who saw it– because the words spoken after seeing my film only speak wonders!
83 is a spectacularly tragic film-maker experience we’ve ever had. Trade analysts put up comparisons between 83 and others that were just trying to compare apples to oranges or comparing rotten oranges with fresh fruit – no offence, of course. People are drawing conclusions about what youngsters do based on what has happened before when they haven’t even seen the film.
There are two statements I want to make. Firstly, neither Rajini nor Kamalahasan saw the movie until last Friday evening – they know there isn’t going to be anything wrong with it because those actors know when they see quality work; secondly been looking after my boy called Kabir Singh Kalsi while he was in England … This person spent so much time coming across random public screenings so Indian distributors could assess whether a market existed for the movie or not but nobody showed up … And me getting pissed off tweeted out something important – Twitter validated my thoughts.
