Vidhu Vinod Chopra Talks Bollywood Sleeper Hit ’12th Fail,’ Plans China Release: ‘In Every Market Where There Is Struggle, the Film Will Do Well’ (EXCLUSIVE)
05.04.2024 - 10:15
/ variety.com
Naman Ramachandran For veteran Bollywood filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra, his latest film “12th Fail” is the gift that keeps on giving. Based on the 2019 book of the same name by Anurag Pathak, the film tells the true story of Manoj Kumar Sharma who conquered extreme familial poverty to pass one of the world’s toughest examination processes and become an Indian Police Service officer. Distributed by Zee Studios, the modestly budgeted “12th Fail” released theatrically in October 2023 in a Bollywood market where only big-budget action spectacles were working and many smaller films were taking the easier route to bowing directly on a streamer.
The lead cast of Vikrant Massey (Disney+ Series “Criminal Justice”) and Medha Shankr (Busan selection “Max, Min and Meowzaki”), while extremely competent, were not marquee names. The film struck a chord with audiences and has grossed $8.5 million to date, more than three times its budget. “Each film has its own God, and it’s always a mystery what that God does for that movie.
So it’ll always remain a mystery to me as to why it did as well as it did,” Chopra told Variety. “For me, all I can say is perhaps because it’s an honest film, made with honesty and it propagates honesty… and in today’s world, honesty is really in short, short supply. So, perhaps because of that, it connected with so many people, but frankly I don’t have an answer for it.
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