Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Dev D’ remains one of his best works, which is why, the film-maker has said that he feels that the Abhay Deol starrer deserved to be released in more number of screens. Film producer Siddharth Roy Kapur has now responded to Kashyap’s view and opened up about the idea behind releasing certain films on a limited number of screens. He also shared how the same approach was used for ‘Barfi!’, even though it featured major stars like Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra. The film directed by Anurag Basu also starred Ileana D’cruz. Speaking on Komal Nahta’s podcast, Siddharth recalled the experience of working with Anurag and praised his creative discipline. “Anurag Kashyap works best when he has tight budgets and he needs to prove a point,” he said. “He produced a film that looked many times its budget, but did not cost that much. We had an old-school premiere at Chandan Cinema. We got 5-star reviews, and that film went on to do very good business. We have many examples of how we used to be able to make our mark.”When Nahta mentioned that Kashyap had expressed disappointment about ‘Dev D’’s limited release, Siddharth clarified, “Anurag has never made that argument to me directly, so I feel it’s hearsay. ‘Dev D’ is one film where Anurag still receives overflowing cheques. I remember signing many of those. It was a smart release because it was a city-driven film, and we didn’t go too wide because we wanted the occupancy level to be high. We wanted there to be the demand for the film, and at that time, films could keep running on screens; they just didn’t survive for two weeks in a theater. And the film did really well.”He then explained how a similar calculated release plan was applied to Barfi! despite its commercial potential. “We did a limited release for Barfi! too. It was the kind of film we knew would get high occupancy, and we were very confident. If you flood screens with a film like that, you are destroying it. You need to be able to nurture films like that,” Siddharth said.He added that the team was careful even about show timings. “I was asked this question about why I was releasing Barfi! in a limited way because Ranbir was coming off a streak of hits at that time, and Priyanka was successful. But we stuck to our guns, and it really helped.”
