[ad_1]
Abhishek Bachchan and his father Amitabh Bachchan won National Awards for the same film, R Balki’s Paa, which released in cinemas back in 2009. While Amitabh won the Best Actor in a Leading Role award, his son received the Best Feature Film in Hindi honour as the film’s producer. Along with being an actor in the movie, in which he played his real-life father’s onscreen father, Abhishek also showed his astute business sense as a producer.
“I made that film within Rs 17 crore as a producer. I went to the film’s hero, Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, who’s also my father, and said, ‘I want to produce this film. I won’t be able to pay you for it because the production budget is Rs 17 crore, and I don’t think if it goes more than that, it’d be able to work. So, whatever profits we earn from it, I’d pay that to you.’ He agreed readily,” recalled Abhishek.
The actor-producer then recalled facing a litmus test in the form of an offer from a corporate house after Paa was ready. “The corporate house offered me Rs 60 crore for the film. Business sense tells me if I’ve spent Rs 17 crore on a film and I’m getting an offer worth Rs 60 crore, I’d earn a profit of Rs 43 crore. I should’ve taken it,” Abhishek Bachchan reasoned in an old interview with Zoom.
But contrary to conventional business wisdom, he decided against taking that call. “Because I knew that the market for that film wasn’t more than Rs 17 crore. Had I sold it for Rs 60 crore back then, you guys would’ve said today that Paa was a flop film. So it’s always in the producer’s hands,” argued Abhishek.
Abhishek Bachchan was right because Paa went on to earn Rs 40.84 crore gross at the domestic box office and Rs 47 crore at the worldwide box office. The film also won multiple National Awards, including Best Feature Film in Hindi, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Supporting Actress for Arundhati Nag, who played Amitabh’s maternal grandmother in the film, and Best Makeup for Bachchan’s unrecognizable appearance as a child battling progeria.
Amitabh Bachchan has previously praised Abhishek for how he managed the costs of Paa. “This time, Abhishek has managed all the production hassles and I am glad he has done it with a high level of maturity,” the actor told IANS in a 2009 interview. “I think he has done a remarkable job. I give huge credit to him for making the film without compromising on the quality or the shooting locations. God willing, it will pay off well,” he added.
Story continues below this ad
Interestingly, Amitabh Bachchan’s production house ABCL had declared bankruptcy in 1999. After Amitabh’s resurgence post Kaun Banega Crorepati in 2000, ABCL eventually became profitable and was renamed AB Corp. Under Abhishek Bachchan’s leadership, the production house delivered its first major hit in Paa only 1o years after declaring bankruptcy.
[ad_2]
Source link
