Rohit Shetty’s 2022 release Cirkus failed massively at the box office. The film starring Ranveer Singh had a lifetime collection of Rs 35.65 crore and received really poor reviews. The filmmaker, who shot Cirkus during the pandemic, had earlier revealed that he made it only to ensure that the workers who are associated with him get some jobs.
Now, in an interview with Digital Commentary, the film’s writer Yunus Sajawal, elaborated the same and shared that Rohit was really concerned for his unit during the lockdown. “When the lockdown kept extending and everyone realised that this is going to happen for long, the release of Sooryavanshi had to be paused, instead of just postponing it again and again. Rohit sir wanted to have a Zoom meeting at first. In April, he had already called the production to book Mehboob studio for September. He wanted to make an indoor film,” he said.
Yunus further added, “So, he basically made that film only for his unit. He said something really nice, ‘Main do saal kaam nahi karunga toh chal jaayega. Mere unit waalon ka ghar kaise chalega? (It won’t affect me if I don’t work for two years, but what about my unit)? Because, no one was working due to COVID and were only exhausting their savings. Hence, he wanted to make a studio based film so that the unit’s family and house can keep running smoothly.”
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In addition, Shetty made sure to hire junior artists of Cirkus for a few months so they can earn money. “He will never tell this to anyone, he took it on himself accepting the film as a failure. Moreover, if the unit is of 500 people, he used to pay all 500, despite working in rotations because only 100 people were allowed at once because of pandemic restrictions. Every junior artist went through the checkups and vaccinations and they all were hired for four months. Even if there won’t be any shooting, they would be paid,” he said.
Rohit Shetty’s last film Singham Again was a success and earned more than Rs 400 crores at the worldwide box office. The film starred Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, Tiger Shroff, Akshay Kumar, and Arjun Kapoor.
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