Sam Bahadur Director Meghna Gulzar Says Box Office Pressures 'Have Always Been There'

Meghna Gulzar is the daughter of celebrated lyricist Gulzar and an acclaimed director. Her recent outing Sam Bahadur was a critical and commercial success. Headlined by Vicky Kauhsal the movie was a war biopic that released alongside Ranbir Kapoor starrer Animal. The film’s box office business took a hit because of the clash but yet emerged as a hit. In a new interview, filmmaker Meghna Gulzar opens up on the pressures of the box office. 

Meghna Gulzar says box office pressure was always there 

Helmer of Raazi, Chappak and now Sam Bahadur, Meghna Gulzar is not a stranger to the pressures of the box office. In an interview with Free Press Journal, the filmmaker shared that the pressures have always ‘been there’. She continued, “No filmmaker makes a film without it. Everything in the film business is related. Back in the day, when films were made in 2 crores, the box office evaluation was accordingly marked.” 

She also opined on the shift in the kind of cinema churning out from the industry. She called the movement ‘gratifying’ and said, “The shift started from films like Khosla Ka Ghosla, Masaan etc. It is very gratifying for all the filmmakers in a way. If we look back to our Hindi cinema, as an industry we follow a certain template of filmmaking. It is a very cyclic process. Like we have middle-of-the-road and parallel cinemas that come and go in between commercial ones. We are on a better part of that cycle, I feel with formats and platforms. The current time allows us to tell a story to the wider audience.” 

Meghna Gulzar on how she chooses her films 

In the same conversation, the filmmaker shared that she does not pick her movies based on national sentiment. She shared, “I don’t pick up stories because they have a National sentiment but if it seems like that, then it’s merely a coincidence. I choose my stories on instincts and a momentary decision. When I did Raazi, I never looked at as a nationalistic film, I felt it’s about selflessness. It was a story of a woman, who sacrificed everything for her father first and then for the country. Chhapaak was a story of an acid survivor. With Sam Bahadur, it was the way he lived his life.”

Meghna Gulzar’s recent film Sam Bahadur is available to stream on Zee 5.