Aanand L Rai reveal why he failed miserably with Raksha Bandhan

• The director of Raksha Bandhan, Aanand L Rai, has explained why he “failed horribly.”
• He admitted that he was “wrong in discriminating between the audiences” in a recent interview.
• The director also said that with Raksha Bandhan, he “went too smart.”

The director of Raksha Bandhan, Aanand L Rai, has explained why he “failed horribly.” He admitted that he was “wrong in discriminating between the audiences” in a recent interview. The director also said that with Raksha Bandhan, he “went too smart.” Aanand also discussed his unsuccessful Raksha Bandhan “plan.”

This year’s Raksha Bandhan premiered in August. The movie stars Bhumi Pednekar, Sadia Khateeb, Sahejmeen Kaur, Deepika Khanna, and Smrithi Srikanth in addition to Akshay Kumar. Lala Kedarnath (Akshay) and his relationships with his four sisters are the subject of the film Raksha Bandhan. It addresses issues like dowry and body shaming and focuses on his attempts to marry off his sisters. In the first week after its release, the movie made about 37.50 crore.

In an interview with a news agency, Aanand said, “I was wrong while making Raksha Bandhan when I thought let me give them something which is more of India and let me cater to the audience in the B and C tier cities. I was wrong in differentiating between the audiences. That’s not my job. I should focus more on the story rather than selecting the audience whom I want to cater to. This is my learning. We are battling the same thing and trying to find out what story will engage the audience at this moment and in this phase. Post-pandemic we have failed the audience with that. Maybe, I went too smart with Raksha Bandhan. I was trying to put it in a bracket and that’s wrong.”

“It was my fastest film but I relished it. I never made this film in a rush. I had fun. But I’m thinking hard about what didn’t work. And I’ve understood that in Raksha Bandhan, the start, middle and ending, the highs and lows, everything was structured. Unfortunately, its emotions were also formatted, which used to work and I thought it would work again. But was I dishonest? No, I was not. I was not living it superficially. There was a strategy which failed. I was always gutsy and never played safe. But I think subconsciously I tried to do that with Raksha Bandhan and I failed miserably. I have learned that I should keep on doing the gutsy work, without thinking of ₹200 crore or ₹300 crore,” he added.

Aanand argued that the narrative still has the upper hand, using Drishyam 2 as an illustration. “We all thought people wanted to watch a big spectacle, but then we saw Drishyam 2 working. So, it’s the story. It was never about stars, at least for me. My foundation was created by R Madhavan and Dhanush and the audience was watching those films,” he added.