'WE JUST HAVE TO GIVE THEM A GOOD FILM AND THEY WILL GIVE YOU THE NUMBERS'

Every film cannot do a business of Rs 200 crore.

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Abhishek Pathak started out assistant at as a production 17, studied film-making at the New York Film Academy; at A 21, he made a short film, Boond, which won the National Award; flagged off the superhit Pyaar Ka Punchnama franchise, along with Khuda Haafiz, as a producer. He is now is winning raves for directing Drishyam 2, which has grossed over Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) at the box office and brought huge cheer in a drought year for Hindi films.

Abhishek reveals how he came to direct Drishyam 2 after Nishikant Kamat, who directed Drishyam, died.

"I had a certain vision for the film when I bought the rights and didn't want it to get lost in translation, so I stepped up."

It does. The audience is loving Drishyam 2; they are coming to the theatres to watch it. It's a big achievement!

Despite the pre-release anticipation, did you expect such an overwhelming response?

Yes. That’s why we held on to all the rights, including the global theatrical rights.

Yash Raj Films only distributed the film for us in the international market, and we partnered with them in India, because we were confident of the numbers.

This despite the Malayalam original being available on OTT at the press of a button?

What you can watch on Amazon Prime is not a dubbed Hindi version but the Malayalam original with English subtitles.