Director Atlee‘s “Jawan,” starring Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, is the highest grossing Indian film of the year with $138.6 million. With 91%, it has also become the first Indian film to surpass the 90% level critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, above Karan Johar’s “Rocky aur Rani kii Prem Kahaani” (88%) and Khan’s personal “Pathaan” (83%).
Atlee apprenticed with famend blockbuster maker S. Shankar on “Enthiran” (2010), starring Rajinikanth, and “Nanban” (2012), starring Vijay, and made his directorial debut with Fox Star Studios’ “Raja Rani” (2013).
“Jawan” started in 2019 when Atlee acquired a name from Khan’s manufacturing firm Red Chillies Entertainment requesting a gathering and initially thought it was a prank. It took a mutual good friend – producer Aalif Surti (“Soorarai Pottru”) – to persuade Atlee he wasn’t being pranked. Atlee met Khan at his Mumbai residence Mannat and realized that the star was severe about working collectively.
“Then I started working on it, I just tried all the best ideas I can put together. Then, in the process of eight months, we arrived at a line of one jailer and five women who are going to be vigilantes and take revenge while championing social causes,” Atlee informed Variety. “We developed it in a couple of months, and we narrated to Shah Rukh-sir and he really liked it. And from there, the film started.”
“He asked let’s do a film, so it was like something else to me, I have to give the best to him. The film process was exclusively made for Shah Rukh-sir. So once he asked, I started to write a love letter to him and that is ‘Jawan,’” Atlee added.
What introduced Atlee to Khan’s consideration was a trio of blockbusters starring Vijay, “Theri” (2016), “Mersal” (2017) and “Bigil” (2019). “He was really keen after seeing these three films that I had something in my filmmaking process and in my film language. He said, ‘I want to do an Atlee film.’ I asked him ‘What is an Atlee film?’ and he said, ‘Having everything in the film, all kinds of entertainment,’” Atlee stated.
“Jawan” follows Indian military commando Captain Vikram Rathore, who’s wronged, and his son Azad (each performed by Khan), a jailer who reunites together with his father after years of separation to proper the incorrect and likewise appropriate social injustices. The solid additionally consists of Tamil-language cinema superstars Nayanthara and Vijay Sethupathi.
Khan debuted in tv in 1988 and in movies in 1992. Prior to finalizing the “Jawan” script, Atlee and his writing workforce watched the actor’s complete oeuvre spanning greater than 30 years. “We had a thought, this vigilante world he has not tried. And the father role he has done in ‘Veer-Zara’ [2004], but it’s not that massy, it was very script oriented. I want to create a massy world for Shah Rukh-sir, I wanted to bring the massy-ness of Shah Rukh-sir, which he has not exploded for the last 30 years. He has done dramatic roles, he has even done action roles and he has done a Bourne-like role in ‘Pathaan,’ he has done all genres, but he has never tried the mass zone, mass touch,” Atlee stated.
In phrases of course of, Atlee, who’s from the world of Tamil-language cinema, wrote your complete script in Tamil because the solid and crew was largely from that trade, with Khan’s parts translated to the Hindi-language. The language of communication with Khan was in English. Any apprehensions Atlee had vanished the second they began capturing, he stated, and the solid and crew fell right into a rhythm from the get go.
The filmmaker says that his star was initially very keen on the function of Azad however after they began capturing Vikram Rathore he loved it much more. “He was like an innocent kid on the set, enjoying every moment. Once we started shooting Vikram Rathore, he said, ‘This is something I’ve not done, it really excites me.’ All the mass moments of Vikram he really enjoyed and said he’s not done this in 30 years and that is the world I tried to create,” Atlee stated. “That’s the word I think most of this part of cinema has not seen for some time. I think it’s been done before, but in the recent 20-30 years, it is not done here. So, I think that is the magic behind the success of ‘Jawan.’”
“Shah Rukh-sir said when we met for the first time, ‘I am bringing you from from the place where you are very successful. Once you come here, you have to be the most successful director in the country and you have to be talked about.’ So I said ‘Sir, we will see.’ He said, ‘No, no, that is our first aim and then we will see where the film goes.’ So it is completely Mr. Shah Rukh’s vision to make this film this big,” Atlee added.
About the opportunity of “Jawan,” the place the principal characters stay alive, being prolonged right into a franchise, Atlee stated: “Generally all of my films are in that zone. But as a writer, I’ve never needed to get into those shoes. Maybe in future when I get a really cracking idea, I might come up with something for sure.”
An prolonged minimize of “Jawan” is now streaming on Netflix.