Kangana Ranaut’s directorial debut Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi entered the Rs 100-crore club and the actor-director can be rightfully proud of her achievement. The actor spoke to Mid Day about the success of the film and added that they were surprised to face competition from an unexpected quarter; Vicky Kaushal starrer Uri.
“None of us expected the competition we got from Uri. It was another patriotic film that shared the same theme – fighting back for the nation. It was in its third week, but it still put up quite a tough fight.”
Manikarnika was mired in controversies, right from the time it was getting made and later, after it released, its co-director Krish, in a series of interviews, made few damning comments on Kangana. Reacting to it and asked if it took away any of the joy, Kangana said that nothing succeeded like success and that it was a good fight, at the end.
“Nothing succeeds like success. These people would have disowned the film if it was bad. These are the people who had abandoned it. [But] this is a good fight, where the cast and crew are bickering over who owns the movie more. We were able to make a clean film, no one has blamed me for distorting history. Personally, there is no controversy of great magnitude here. I don’t see any negativity attached to it outside the industry. I am satisfied with the audience’s response.”
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Elaborating further, Kangana said that while, at one point, it seemed as if the film’s release was difficult, she is happy with the way audience accepted the film. She knew that nobody could accuse her of distorting history and hoped that as the film has recovered its money, more and more producers would be willing to back film helmed by women.
On Monday, Rangoli Chennai, Kangana’s sister, had shared the budget as well the money the film had made on social media.
“Manikarnika investments and returns Budget- 79cr Print+Marketing- 22cr Digital rights sold- 40cr Satellite rights sold- 20cr Distribution rights- 61cr India business – 100.05cr still counting Worldwide – 152cr and still counting…” she had tweeted.
Kangana’s next release would be Mental Hai Kya with Rajkummar Rao.
[“source-“hindustantimes”]