'Pathaan Has Brought Our Zest Back'

'Today, the risks have risen.'
'So stars need good content and good content needs stars.'
'It is now X+Y (star + content) not that X is greater than Y or Y is greater than X.'

The year has started on a great note for India's largest film studio Yash Raj Films.

YRF reported a revenue of Rs 632 crore (Rs 6.32 billion) in FY22.

The two years of the pandemic are now forgotten in the afterglow of Siddharth Anand's Pathaan.

The Shah Rukh Khan starrer which released on January 25 has raked in Rs 1,050 crore (Rs 10.50 billion) in global box office collections, making it the biggest Hindi hit ever. And in this day of streaming, it continues its theatrical run.

Vanita Kohli-Khandekar spoke to Akshaye Widhani, CEO, YRF, on what this means for the studio and its growth plans.

What has Pathaan done for YRF?

The biggest thing it has done is it got our zest back.

Everyone knows that 2022 was a really tough year for us.

We were financially stable but morally we were not happy.

For me, for Aditya (Chopra) as chairman, and for everyone on this campus, there is now an air of happiness.

Second, it tells me that that star and content are equal contributors to a film.

There was a time when a weekend was guaranteed if it was a certain star's film.

Today, the risks have risen. So stars need good content and good content needs stars.

There are so many good films but don't get the visibility that having a star would have got them.

It is now X+Y (star + content) not that X is greater than Y or Y is greater than X.

Third, YRF will build its spy universe bigger.

Every spy universe film is a blockbuster (Ek Tha Tiger, Tiger Zinda Hai, War and now Pathaan).

Now we just need to work harder, expand this universe further and give you a bigger experience.

Four, our bond with Shah Rukh gets stronger and stronger. It is uncanny what he and Adi share -- as collaborators or co-creators. That magic works.

Was the creation of the Spy Universe an afterthought during Pathaan's release?

Ek Tha Tiger came in 2012 (with Salman Khan as a spy). Then Tiger Zinda Hai came in 2017.

It did better than the first one, and then War came in 2019 with Hrithik Roshan as Kabir.

When War did as well as Tiger, we realised that some magic is happening here.

So when we designed Pathaan and Tiger 3, the thought of the universe came.

It was not an afterthought at the release time because we shot with Salman in Pathaan. And we are now shooting with Pathaan in Tiger 3.

Now that spectacle films are getting audiences into the theatre, is there a danger of that becoming the formula?

Not if they are spaced out correctly.

When I say big spectacle, it doesn't just mean blowing up cars or planes.

It is about the experience, like last scene of Pathaan (where SRK and Salman have a witty dialogue) or Salman-Shah Rukh doing action together.

These are just some memories that you will always have when you watch these films.

For example, Drishyam 2 is an experience. Kantara kept us engrossed in Kannada folklore. It is a tricky time.

We don't know what is definitely going to work or not work.

Where is YRF placed in the post digital and post pandemic world?

It is tough. No studio in the world has an answer on what will work.

The narrative is the same everywhere.

Covid has changed audience tastes and how they consume content.

It has accelerated what was going to happen over 5-7 years.

We are adjusting to the new normal.

How do we navigate it? We want to tell stories on both mediums - digitally and theatrically.

What does the revenue pie for YRF look like?

Our primary source of income is film -- whether we get it through theatrical, catalogue licensing, music income – it is all film.

About 80-90 per cent of the income is primarily from the 80 films we own.

We own all the music of our films from Dil To Paagal Hai (1997) onwards.

Our studios (shooting floors, post production facilities etc) and visual effects businesses are not part of the main balance sheet, they are separate companies -- YRF Studios and yFX.

Where are all these businesses headed?

We are storytellers. Our growth plan is to tell more stories, make high content films, digital shows and digital films for streaming.

We have just finished filming Shiv Rawail's The Railway Men.

There is a second show from Gopi Puthran who made Mardaani 2 (2019).

We are also working hard to crack Broadway (New York).

We did our off-Broadway regional run last September.

We are now workshopping while waiting for a building.

We are doing an adaptation of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge for the global audience that Aditya is directing.

What happened to the Hollywood attempt?

There is no plan. We did try.

We financed and produced The Longest Week (2014) with Olivia Wilde and Jason Bateman, and financed Grace of Monaco with Nicole Kidman (2014). But we have decided against trying to be a mainstream Hollywood studio.

It takes a large set up and it shifts priorities. We have decided to focus on telling stories from India and taking them there.

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com