Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel starrer action film “Gadar 2,” directed by Anil Sharma, has triumphed at the box office, amassing ₹135 crore over its opening weekend. To commemorate this achievement, a success press conference was convened in Mumbai on Monday. During the event, Sunny, Anil Sharma, and Zee Studios CEO Shariq Patel, along with other participants, shared some significant insights about “Gadar 2.”
Director Anil Sharma elucidated the reason behind the nearly two-decade wait for the green light on a sequel to “Gadar.” He articulated that a compelling rationale was required for Sunny’s character, Tara Singh, to venture back to Pakistan. Sharma remarked, “What was Gadar? The first Gadar was like the Ramayana. Rama ji travels to Lanka to rescue Sita. I thought, this is the Ramayana, it won’t fail as it resides in people’s hearts. The second story was akin to the Mahabharata: What if, when Abhimanyu is trapped in the Chakravyuh, Arjun himself comes to his rescue? No one could’ve failed with that story either, as it also resides in people’s hearts.”
Challenging the notion of a film catering solely to the masses, Sunny asserted that “Gadar 2” is resonating universally. He expressed, “They say it’s appealing to the masses. Who are these masses? There’s only one audience, and it remains consistent for every film. Don’t diminish the film by labeling it only for the masses,” Sunny emphasized during the success event.
Addressing the criticism that “Gadar 2” exhibits a ’90s-style film approach, Shariq Patel responded, “We’re caught between Bandra and Andheri. We are dedicated to creating films for our kind of people. As a studio, we’re presenting films like ‘Kennedy’ (Anurag Kashyap’s film) at Cannes and ‘Joram’ (Devashish Makhija’s film) at Rotterdam, but it’s also imperative to produce films like ‘Gadar 2.’ We’ve become overly cerebral and less celebratory. Certainly, cerebral cinema has its place, but not exclusively. When you watch cerebral cinema, put on your cerebral hat. When you indulge in celebratory cinema, leave the cerebral hat behind. Our commitment is to produce such grounded films annually that resonate with the Bikaner audience,” Shariq articulated. He also revealed that Zee Studios has plans to release another vintage-style entertainer starring Sunny Deol next year, titled “Baap.”
