Kangana Ranaut recently admitted that opting for a theatrical release for Emergency instead of a direct OTT premiere may have been a mistake.
After facing several controversies and significant delays, Emergency, which marks Kangana Ranaut’s directorial debut and her return to the screen after over a year, is finally set for release.
This comes after the makers made changes suggested by the Central Board of Film Certification’s (CBFC) revision committee. While Kangana is thrilled that the film will reach audiences soon, she recently admitted that opting for a theatrical release instead of a direct OTT premiere may have been a mistake. She also added that if she had chosen the OTT route, the film would not have faced the scrutiny of the CBFC.
“I was scared,” Kangana admitted during an interview with News18, when asked about the film’s inordinate delay. The actor-filmmaker said, “I felt it was a wrong decision to release it in theatres. I felt I could have got a better deal on OTT. I wouldn’t have to go through censorship then and my film wouldn’t have been analysed.
I didn’t know what they (CBFC) would remove and let us keep.” It is pertinent to mention here that the CBFC, a statutory body under the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, headed by Kangana’s BJP minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, is responsible for film certification in India. “I felt I made the wrong choices on many levels: first of all, directing this film.
I assumed that even though we don’t have a Congress government… I had earlier talked about the film Kissa Kursi Ka. Till date no one has seen that film and at that time, they had burnt all the prints. Also, no one made a film on Mrs Gandhi. After watching Emergency, today’s generation will be surprised to think how did she become like that; after all, she became PM three times. I underestimated things and thought I would be able to get away with making a film on Emergency,” he said.
“There was a disappointment but we fought it. We submitted all the documents after facing scrutiny even on minor things. A lot of historians and people from different provinces and communities saw it and they did not find anything objectionable. They also accepted that the film is illegally stalled. But we respect government bodies a lot and we cooperated with them completely,” he said.
Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Ashok Emergency, starring Chhabra, Mahima Chaudhry, Milind Soman, Vishak Nair and Satish Kaushik in lead roles, will hit the screens on January 17. Emergency is Kangana’s first film after the box-office disaster Tejas (2023) and its success is inevitable for the actor whose career has not seen a single success in five years.
