Anubhav Sinha recalls when ‘entire industry’ wanted Shah Rukh to fail, labelled Ra.One as a flop film

Director Anubhav Sinha is busy promoting his upcoming film Bheed. The trailer of Bheed, which released on March 10, had attracted a lot of attention on social media. The film revolves around the effects of the first lockdown in 2020 on migrant workers and compares it to the Partition in 1947. It stars Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, and Dia Mirza in pivotal roles. The director opened up in a recent interview about the massive shift in his directorial features, having also headlined Shah Rukh Khan starrer Ra.One. He said that at time the entire industry wanted Shah Rukh to fail at that point of time. (Also read: Hansal Mehta responds as film trade analyst calls Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed ‘absolutely ridiculous’: ‘So you’ve seen it’)

Anubhav is known for making gritty and realistic films that have a strong message of social change. He has made films like Mulk (2018), Article 15 (2019), Thappad (2020) and Anek (2022). Yet, as a director he began with directing predominantly mainstream films, including Tum Bin (2001), Dus (2005), Cash (2007), and Tum Bin 2 (2016). He was also the director behind Shah Rukh’s big-budget superhero film Ra.One, which released in 2011. The film starred Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Satish Shah and collected more than ₹200 crores worldwide. It was considered one of the most expensive films of that time.

In a new interview with Variety, Anubhav opened up about the time Ra.One was considered a flop film and how the industry wanted Shah Rukh to fail. He said, “Today, ‘Ra.One’ is a hit, but when it released, they called it a flop. That was a time when the industry wanted Shah Rukh to fail, because they couldn’t deal with this size. Then ‘Tum Bin 2’ failed. Then I said, ‘No. I’ll make films for the man that I was.’ And then I could revert to that individual. This is roughly the time the Indian political landscape was changing quite dramatically. This is also the time that I started reading again, after like, at least 20 years.”

Meanwhile, Bheed will release in cinemas on March 24. The film is shot extensively in Lucknow, and is jointly produced by Anubhav Sinha and Bhushan Kumar. Bheed also features Kritika Kamra, Pankaj Kapur, Virendra Saxena, Aditya Shrivastav, and Karan Pandit.