After the success of his critically acclaimed directorial debut
Udaan, Vikramaditya Motwane now has plans to tie up with his producer Anurag Kashyap to start a production house.
Says Motwane, “Anurag and I have been planning to start a company for a year now. But we are not sure if
we are ready or if we should wait to establish ourselves more.” The duo wants to start a company that will produce feature films and ads. They even want to start a venture where they can bring together all “like-minded” off-mainstream directors under one umbrella.
“In a utopian world, we’d like all filmmakers from Dibakar Banerjee to Abbas Tyrewala to come under one umbrella,” Motwane says. “We get along well. We read each other’s scripts and early cuts and give each other feedback. It’s a very healthy process.”
But the company may have to wait since Motwane is still making plans to sustain
Udaan.
“I didn’t expect the film to work,” he chuckles. “It was a difficult story to sell – it has no stars, a first-time director, actor, producer and an atypical story. The response has been beyond my expectations… Some of the shows at night are running to full houses.”
The director discloses that multiplexes initially weren’t going to play the movie for more than a week since Akshay Kumar’s big-budget
Khatta Meetha hit theatres the second week. “But the film didn’t work in the multiplexes, while ours picked up over the week after an average opening. So the multiplexes didn’t take it off.”
Motwane is now working out details of the film’s video-on-demand, DVD and international release. “We have an international cut, which is 20 minutes shorter, but we are not sure whether to release that. The film’s making it to many festivals, but my focus has always been India.”