No Ra.One without SRK

Director of Ra.One Anubhav Sinha reveals why he wouldn’t have written the film if actor Shah Rukh Khan had not agreed to act in it. Read on to find out more about the film.

Director Anubhav Sinha is pleased about

HT Image

Ra.One

being one of the most awaited films of this year. No wonder he admits to feeling a strange mix of emotions. “The anxiety created by responsibility is what people thrive upon. Even though anxiety is considered a negative term, I enjoy the challenge to deliver,” he enthuses, unperturbed by the low performance of his last film,

Cash

.

Instead, he appreciates the fact that SRK agreed to not only act in his superhero fantasy film, which also stars Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal among others, but also backed it as a producer. “If I make a good film, that doesn’t mean my next will be as good or better. The same rule applies in the case of a bad movie,” he shrugs. Sinha recalls sending Khan a text message to narrate the story of

Ra.One

. “I wrote to him that I had this story and I wouldn’t develop it if he wouldn’t be on board. Without SRK,

Ra.One

wouldn’t have been made,” he reiterates.

Robotics

Reports that spoke of the sky-rocketing budget of the film also made claims of similarities its story line had with Shankar’s Robot, toplining Rajnikanth. “

Robot

released on October 1 and we finished shooting

Ra.One

on October 11. So I don’t know where that has come from. And to insinuate that SRK stole the idea of Robot to make

Ra.One

is not only an insult to SRK, but also to the people who suggest this notion.”

He further asserts, “Anyone who reports such stories should first understand the meaning of Rs 100 crore. When you spend that kind of money on a film, you want only the best.”

On being told that the train sequence in

Ra.One

does indeed look similar to

Robot

, Sinha refers to the day when he narrated that scene to SRK.

“This is before

Robot

released. Shah Rukh laughed when I told him of a train sequence. He pointed out that every superhero film has a train sequence. Be it

Superman, Batman, Spiderman

or even

Hulk

, they all saved a train,” he explains and wonders, “What am I supposed to do now? Delete the train sequence in

Ra.One

?”

Sinha reveals that he and SRK have a good laugh over the stories about

Ra.One

that have been reported in various media.

“If the similarity to Robot was absurd, we were most amused by the news that the costume was made of rubber and cost $1 million each (R 4.5 crore), and there were 27 such costumes,” he laughs. “Hello, 27 costumes worth $1 million each would mean $ 27 million! Just for the costumes! Yes, the costumes are expensive, but not as expensive as has been reported.”

Regaining his calm, he tells us that he and Khan are both amused and happy with all the speculation going around in the media about

Ra.One

. “We’re pleased to see that people are shocked. In spite of all the seemingly dangerous action, high-end visual effects, huge budget and everything that it has,

Ra.One

is a complete family film,” he concludes.