Kiran Rao’s Laapatata Ladies received immense love from the audiences after its digital release. recently, the filmmaker talked about its failure at the box-office.
Kiran Rao returned to the director’s chair nearly after 14 years after her debut film, Dhobi Ghat. Her recent directorial film, Laapataa Ladies, stars Sparsh Shrivastava, Pratibha Ranta, Nitanshi Goel, and Ravi Kishan in the key roles. Months after its theatrical release, the film was available to watch on the streaming platform and got immense love from the audiences.
However, the film couldn’t do wonders at the box office. Recently, Kiran Rao called the box office of her directorial a ‘failure.’
Kiran Rao on Laapataa Ladies’ not performing well at the box-office
While speaking to Faye D’Souza, the filmmaker reflected on the performance of both her films.
She stated that both her films (Dhobi Ghat and Laapataa Ladies) didn’t do great at the box office. Rao added that Dhobhi Ghat at least made some earnings at the box office in its time; however, “10–15 years later,” Laapataa Ladies couldn’t score compared to her directorial debut. She said, “So, in some ways, I do feel that sense of failure. By box office metrics, we weren’t a success.”
Kiran further told Faye that, in a “conventional sense,” her film didn’t make hundreds of crores, or “even ₹30, 40, 50 crores.” In her view, “failure” is the way to describe it, as she felt “responsible” about the film not performing well at the box office.
Kiran Rao on Dhobi Ghat’s underperformance at the box-office
Kiran recalled how she felt it a lot during the release of Dhobi Ghat, as there were not any alternate mediums like OTT. Thus, she expressed her belief, stating that the film couldn’t get a lot of audiences and opined that it was “different” for its time and “unusual” for a theatrical release back then. However, she never felt a deep sense of failure at something.
Kiran Rao on “failure” as a creative person
Speaking about the same, Kiran Rao stated that she has been working relentlessly for the last 10 years. She further expressed that she had very busy days. The filmmaker said that after her first film, she thought her second movie would come soon; however, that “soon” didn’t ever come. This frustrated her on a daily basis.
She added that the inability to put a “full stop and say ‘the end’ bothered her a lot. Kiran said that she has struggled with it for the last 10 years. She shared further that most creative people must also be facing that sense of failure when they don’t achieve something early in their lives or don’t achieve it all.