Mr.Anand Pandit, film producer, and real estate developer recently joined Ronit Raj for a special conversation regarding his upcoming projects.
He has upcoming Bollywood and Marathi films ‘Swatantra Veer Savarkar’ and ‘Victoria’. He owns Anand Pandit Motion Pictures, a film studio that produces and distributes Bollywood films such as Total Dhamaal, Missing, Sarkar 3, and Great Grand Masti.
Excerpts from the interview:
The film industry is a challenging and rewarding place, what do you think about it?
Mr.Anand – Yes, the film industry is a challenging place. But what is that there is no fun in life without challenges. If there is no challenge in any film too, then its end result will not be appreciatable and beautiful. So yes the film industry is a very challenging place, its strike rate of success is very less but when there is success in it, people support it.
Tell me about the success of your films Chehre, The Big Bull and other films.
Mr.Anand – First of all, I am thankful to the audience that they liked both our films very much. People have greatly appreciated whoever our actors are associated with, the rest of the cast and crew members, writers, directors, production teams, etc. I am grateful to all of them. Everyone worked diligently, that was a very difficult time of the pandemic.
Sir, what is the story of your upcoming Marathi film ‘Victoria’ and ‘Baal Shivaji’?
Mr.Anand – We shot the film ‘Victoria’ in Scotland (England). This film will be ready soon, Sonalee Kulkarni is in the lead and it is being directed by National Award-winning director Ravi Yadav. We will release this film by September and this is my third Marathi film which has been shot in Scotland. No one else dared to make most horror films in Marathi and I dared to do this trick. Let’s see how people will feel, we are very excited about this
What are your views on the biopic ‘Swatantra Veer Savarkar’? In which actor Randeep Hooda is in the lead and directed by Mahesh Manjrekar.
Mr.Anand – Today Swatantra Veer Savarkar is in discussion all over the country about him. Unfortunately, he did not get the appreciation they should get, probably due to some political reason and we want to bring that thing out of him and want to show the people that apart from those whom people worship, there are some people who have lived their whole life in front of the British. He has set out in fighting and make his country independent and Swatantra Veer Savarkar is one of them.
And there is no need to say anything about Randeep Hooda’s acting, he is a very good actor, I would call him a method actor, Randeep enters the script, he remembers every dialogue of the script. And also for Mahesh Manjrekar, everyone knows that all the films he has made to date are very good. And I hope people will like this biopic very much.
Share some memorable anecdotes about Amitabh Bachchan when he did shooting for the Gujarati Film ‘Fakt Mahilao Maate’?
Mr.Anand – When I went to meet Bachchan Sir, I was very scared and said that I am making a Gujarati film and wanted to do a small cameo in it and I was thinking that it would be very difficult but as soon as I said I wanted to. If you do a small role, then he immediately said Anand Bhai I don’t know Gujarati. I said sir you don’t need to know Gujarati, I have fixed only that type of role for you, so immediately Bachchan Sir answered yes without any question, so I think it is my good fortune that Bachchan sahib did yes without asking. And after that, I narrated a line to Bachchan sahib, and he liked it very much.
When a producer takes any director before making a film, what does he see?
Mr.Anand – I mostly see the director’s involvement and whether he has done the same thing before or not, I don’t see it as a technical aspect but what he has for the script is very important for the story and I mostly like it. I do that the director himself brings a story, then his conviction is more about that story, so it is very important.
What are your thoughts on making a film in Horror Genre? What is the secret to their success?
Mr.Anand – What has happened now is that due to the OTT platform, people’s taste has changed a bit in the last two years, they are liking the easy content, which has thrillers, suspense, and action, and the films that time are feeling good, so I think this is one. Taking the risk, we have just made this Marathi film ‘Victoria’ and we are trying in Hindi as well, as the film ‘Chehre ‘was a thriller, it was very much liked by the people on OTT.
What do you usually look for in a script before a movie is made or a selection of starcast?
Mr.Anand – I give this work a little bit to my writer and director, what a writer sometimes does is that one of their dreams is to write this character or this actor. Convection of writer and director is very important and we make 3 preferences before taking starcast in the film and then try to convene them, this is a very simple process and then commerce in that process in which its cost is seen He evaluates it according to to cost.
