'We didn't anticipate such success,'says 'Pathaan' director Siddharth Anand

Excitement, disbelief, hugging each other but not talking because you didn’t want to jinx it… The first few days after the release of ‘Pathaan’ was a mix of it all, says director Siddharth Anand, basking in the success of his film that beat back boycott calls to smash box-office records.

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‘Pathaan’, Shah Rukh Khan’s first film as a hero after four years, which has crossed Rs 700 crore in gross earnings since its release on January 25.

“We actually could not believe it. We thought this can’t be true, the level of collection, and the level of love. We did not anticipate any of this. Honestly, who does? Every day, we are smashing records, no one can anticipate that no matter how good you think your film is,” the director said in a virtual interview.

‘Pathaan’, which also stars John Abraham and Deepika Padukone, is an important step in YRF’s spy franchise where characters from different films will cross paths at some point.

Known for films such as “Salaam Namaste”, “Ta Ra Rum Pum”, “Bachna Ae Haseeno”, “Bang Bang!” and “War”, the 44-year-old said he has no time for a break and is already shooting his next film, “Fighter”. “We are at the cusp of something really special and exciting in a genre that not everyone is doing, and we are doing it well and the audience is loving it. This is still growing so I don’t want to speak much and jinx it, but the next few years will be very exciting,” he added.

Any plans for “Pathaan 2”? “Too early for that. My next film ‘Fighter’ is also larger than life. It is a massive scale action film with top stars… It is very ambitious. That’s what I want to do. I want to do things that give me sleepless nights.”

Salman Khan’s entry scene as Tiger has been one of the most appreciated sequences in “Pathaan” with fans sharing the clip on social media. Anand said the team was equally thrilled with the sequence.

The director said he wanted to put these two superstars in a busy scene but keep the humour intact. “I was very clear that I didn’t want the action to be serious. You have this character that has had a very intense situation… There is a tendency to make it very serious when two action superstars are fighting. I wanted to break that and bring comedy. I wanted smart one-liner and fortunately Abbas Tyrewala (dialogue writer) understood the tone. It took a lot of time, lots of rewrites to get there.”