Ram Gopal Varma: ‘I had to sell my office due to the pandemic’

In this interview with indianexpress.com, the filmmaker opens up about how Ladki is an Indo-Chinese production, and also reveals how the pandemic impacted his business, forcing him to sell his Mumbai-based office, Company.

While Spark app was launched by RGV himself in 2021, he clarifies, “I never had an OTT platform. Ladki is going to be a theatrical release, not an OTT release.” The filmmaker also revealed that his latest outing is an Indo-Chinese project. He said, “The film is released in five languages in India and in China. I have made content for OTT, but I never had an OTT platform. It was wrongly done, there is an OTT platform Spark for which I made some content.”

When asked why he thinks most of his recent projects have not been able to make a mark, he said, “It depends on the audience, what they want to see or not.”

RGV started shooting Ladki in 2019, starring debutante Pooja Bhalekar. On being asked why he chose to work with a new actor, he said, “I needed a professional martial artist, not an actor who just does martial arts training to be fit. We have not used VFX or body doubles for this film, it is a very realistic film, which only a martial artist can do.”

The director shared that it is also because of the pandemic that he was away from film-making for a while. He shared, “I make films both in Telugu and Hindi. I was making this martial arts film for a while, I also made two Telugu films. I am not only a Hindi film director. During this time, a lot of films by a lot of people have not done well. It is not just about my films, but no one targets others. My job is to make films to the best of my ability. Whether the film does well or not is not in my hands. What will work is what will interest the people,” he added.

The Chinese guys celebrating LADKI promotion event in Shenzhen .. check the cutie doll in the 2nd pic with the pic of ⁦@PoojaBofficial⁩ pic.twitter.com/l6Ux4ATOq2

— Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) July 5, 2022

RGV also shared that he had to stop production during the pandemic because Ladki has some Chinese actors and they could not travel due to the pandemic. He said, “I started shooting roughly two years back, then the pandemic hit. As it is a very outdoor film, we needed to meet a lot of people and interact, so obviously we couldn’t be on site due to the restrictions. Secondly, we have some Chinese actors in the film and they couldn’t come to India because of the Covid restrictions. As it was a co-production, we couldn’t finish the film and had to wait for things to work out in both the countries.”

Varma also shared that the film will release in “more than 30,000 odd screens” in China. “It is an Indo China film production, it is not like it is a Hindi film which is later dubbed for the Chinese audience. So it will release there in more then 30,000 odd screens as they find an Indian film on martial arts very exotic,” he shared.

Ram Gopal Varma’s office, Company, in Mumbai was one of the landmarks. It was in the same neighbourhood as Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions and Eros International. However, the filmmaker had to let go of his office. “I had to sell the office because of the pandemic. I am basically from Hyderabad and my family lives there. So when there were lockdowns, I shifted to Goa and that’s where my office is.” However, he says that he has not wrapped his filmmaking business in Mumbai. “I have shot Ladki in Mumbai. We are shooting everywhere, depending on the location required for the film, but the head office (of RGV Films) is in Goa,” he says.