Taapsee Pannu says her co-producers abandoned Dhak Dhak after retrieving their money: ‘Dia Mirza provided space in her house for promotional interviews’

The actor added, “I wanted to produce films I’m not actively part of. Dhak Dhak was a step towards that. There were certain commitments made at the time of signing the film and it’s obviously based on the market scenario at that time. But it takes a lot of courage to stick to it even when the market changes. But this is a gambling business of sorts. So, two years passed by and the situation obviously changed and now it became about just packaging and selling films. So, every studio started to package their films, a big one with a small one, to get a good price and sell it to OTTs. Which means, you’re not really taking risk of recovery for a small film because you don’t have big names to pull in the the audience and they definitely don’t understand what content is working. Thus, they think a big star is a safe option and our film is not and suggest that we sell it to OTT for a post theatrical release. Now, strangely, OTTs have also started saying that they can’t take every film and that they don’t want to spend money on the PR of every film. Since small films with no stars is difficult to push in the market, they ask us to release the film (in theatres first) and say that they’ll release it on OTTs later.”

Watch Expresso with Taapsee Pannu and Imtiaz Ali here:

Taapsee Pannu also suggested the co-producers of Dhak Dhak didn’t back her film till the end. She said, “If it’s not a big budget film, studios recover the money before the film hits theatres. Now that they have made their money, they just make a token release. They don’t even want to spend on Prints and Advertising (P&A). Exhibitors feel that since its no mass masala movie, why spend for electricity and popcorn at al. So they give us odd shows, theatres etc. Then it’s abruptly removed in the middle of the week. At that time I was so frustrated… We started showing the film 4-5 days after the film’s trailer came out. People started coming to us saying they’ll help promote it. But I still didn’t have people standing next to to me as producers and co-producers who said ‘we did as much as we could and leave the rest to the audience’. They instead said, ‘Why bother? It’s already made its money and now it will find it’s audience.'”

Mentioning that she eventually had to put her foot down and take a stand to ensure her film received attention, Pannu said such efforts proved helpful as the movie made “some noise”. “Despite brilliant reviews, it was out of the theatres in one week. And then it came on OTT a day before or after The Archies released. I was like, either my fate or the film’s is bad. I thought it was going to get washed out in the Archies wave. However, 24 hours after release, Dhak Dhak took over Archies and it became #1 trending film on Netflix for 10 days straight.”

“The four lead women, they stood by the film. Dia stepped in and provided us a space in her house for interviews with the ladies. She called over journalists to her place for the interviews. I have never seen many actors taking ownership of a film like that. I was so proud to be a part of that film,” she added.