Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri recently revealed that the money earned from the box office collection of The Kashmir Files (Rs 340.92 crore) was used to make his next film, The Vaccine War, which has left him bankrupt. At the trailer launch of his upcoming film in Mumbai, Agnihotri exclusively tells News18 that despite witnessing commercial and critical success, it is still difficult to get financiers on board for his films.
He rues, “If you take a look at the list of upcoming films and the most anticipated releases put forth by news channels and newspapers, none of them include The Vaccine War. Since the last nine months, people were aware that we’re making this film. This morning, an eminent trade analyst sent me one such list of the expected films of this month and they stated that the next big hit will be another film that’s also releasing on September 28.”
He goes on to point out that in a situation like this, funding his own films becomes the only solution. “That list of releases didn’t even include the name of our film as if we don’t even exist. If we don’t exist, how will anyone even finance our film? Aise situation mein kua khud khodna padhta hai aur paani nikalna padhta hai,” Agnihotri states.
Unlike The Kashmir Files, The Vaccine War is bankrolled by Agnihotri and Pallavi Joshi’s production house, I Am Buddha. It revolves around India’s victory in preparing a vaccine for the world to save them from the hazardous COVID-19 pandemic. It features Joshi, Anupam Kher, Nana Patekar and Sapthami Gowda, among others. It is all set to release in theatres in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on September 28.
Speaking about what sets The Vaccine War apart, Agnihotri elaborates, “CBFC doesn’t allow you to write ‘a true story’ on the poster unless the story of a film is absolutely true. We have done two years of research and interviews that we did and the names of every scientist is real. As far as the journalist in the film is concerned, the toolkit has the real document. We have only changed the name of the foundation not to get into a defamation kind of a scenario. Every article and tweet used in the film is absolutely real even though we have blurred the names in India since CBFC has certain guidelines. The characters’ names have been changed but when you see the film, you will understand who these people are. In The Kashmir Files, we had created some fictional characters but all the events were true. In this film, everything from the first frame to the last is real. In fact, a whole lot of dialogues being spoken by the scientists were actually spoken by them, those dialogues aren’t a product of my imagination.”
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