MUMBAI: These days makers don’t even shy away from creating controversies at the time of their film’s release. However, it’s a different thing that they make sure the audience does not get to know about it. But during a session at Jio MAMI 19th Mumbai Film Festival on Monday, director-producer Nikkhil Advani revealed that a person from the marketing team of Lucknow Central asked him to create a scandal involving the film’s lead Farhan Akhtar in order to sell the picture.
In case you don’t know, Lucknow Central, produced by Advani, was released alongside Kangana Ranaut’s Simran on September 15.
The producer, who was present at a panel discussion along with two young producers at the festival, was asked if marketing creates pressure during film promotion or if marketing overpowers creativity.
In his reply, Nikkhil said, “I got a call from the marketing person saying Kangana’s scandal is going on (referring to Kangana’s interview to a Hindi News Channel wherein she talked about her alleged relationship with Hrithik Roshan), tell Farhan to do a scandal. This is an actual conversation!
“Farhan has to have a scandal, otherwise our buzz won’t go up. I said ‘but what scandal?’ and they were like ‘do any scandal but we need it’. I don’t understand it at all. How can I approach Farhan and say ‘hey let’s do a scandal, otherwise no one will watch our film’,” added Advani.
(with inputs from IANS)