Mumbai, August 05: When PHOONK was getting ready for release last year, there was an all around media campaign for the film that included a reward of Rs. 5 lakhs reward for anyone who could watch the film alone. However, for his upcoming film AGYAAT, Ram Gopal Varma has no such plans for extending any monetary benefits of coming into theaters to watch the film.
“Just the other day a journalist reminded me that in case of PHOONK, there was a reward of Rs. 5 lakhs promised to the person who would be able to watch the film alone in an auditorium. She asked me if something similar was being planned for AGYAAT as well. My answer to that question is ‘no’ since AGYAAT is thrilling rather than scary”, says Ram Gopal Varma who has made quite a few scary films like BHOOT and RAAT earlier.
However, now with AGYAAT round the corner, he is going all out to differentiate his AGYAAT from his earlier work.
“The prime difference between my earlier directed films and AGYAAT is the entirely different genre that it belongs to. While PHOONK, BHOOT or RAAT were all horror thrillers and hence scary, my AGYAAT is more of an adventure thriller”, says Ramu who also has the distinction of making an intentional comic horror thriller DARLING (Fardeen Khan, Esha Deol, Esha Koppikar) a couple of years back.
Explaining the difference between how a movie could be treated differently when it came to thrills or scare factor, Ramu elaborates, “Both kind of films present a different world altogether. There is a major difference between a thrilling narrative and a scary narrative. For example when we talk about a film being scary, we immediately have ghosts and spirits as the reference points.”
AGYAAT stars Nitin Reddy (a Telugu actor who is making his Bollywood debut with the film), Priyanka Kothari and Gautam Rode along with Rasika Duggal, Ishteyak Khan, Ishrat. A co-production of Ram Gopal Varma and Ronnie Screwvala, the film had its major portions shot in Sri Lanka and is now all set for release this Friday.
—Agencies