Rishi Kapoor Very Angry With Anurag Basu Over Jagga Jasoos

Rishi Kapoor lashed out at director Anurag Basu after the lukewarm response to son Ranbir Kapoor’s new film, Jagga Jasoos. Calling him irresponsible, the actor said that the Basu fails to complete films on time. In an interview with Mid-Day, Rishi Kapoor also slammed music composer Pritam.

“Till Wednesday, Anurag Basu was still mixing the film. Can you imagine that? Pritam (composer) probably delivered the music only a week before. What can you say? You don’t take an opinion from anybody. Today’s filmmakers are doing this with everybody. They don’t show their films before release to take opinions, and treat it as though they’re making a nuclear bomb. I didn’t hate or love the film. I only felt it needed to be abridged by 20 minutes. But who is going to give that opinion to them? I totally agree with Ekta (Kapoor) when she threw him out from her film. He had problems with Rakesh Roshan while working on Kites (2010). He’s such an irresponsible director that he doesn’t complete the film. It was supposed to release three times in the past two years, but it kept getting delayed.

Asked about why the film wasn’t released in some international markets on time, Rishi Kapoor again blamed Basu’s delays. “It did not release in Singapore because you have to deliver it five days in advance. It did not release in the Gulf on Thursday because it was only delivered to them on Thursday. This is unreasonable and irresponsible. You may be thinking you are making the Taj Mahal, but you are supposed to make it ready on time. Even Pritam delays his submissions. [It was later promoted as] a kids’ film. But, a kids’ film also has to release at the right time, like during the school vacations. At that time too, Anurag Basu wasn’t ready. There’s economics and maths involved. Everything is not just about creativity.”

“You may be the biggest director in the world,” he said, “but nobody would like to work with you because you are irresponsible. There is somebody else’s money involved in this. I trusted you, and this is what you give us? Ranbir hasn’t held back on spending money on it. You even threw Govinda out of the film. If you don’t want Govinda to work in your film, why did you ask him in the first place?”

Jagga Jasoos released on 14 July. It has so far made Rs 45 crore. According to a Forbes report, the film recorded one of the worst Friday-to-Friday drops of all time, plummeting 85% on its second Friday. The troubled film’s relatively large Rs 110 crore budget also poses a problem in the studio’s plans for a sequel.