Mumbai, March 13 Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma said on Friday that he is working on the fourth part of his “Sarkar” franchise.
Starring Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan, “Sarkar” was a political crime thriller franchise rooted in the socio-politics of Maharashtra and revolved around the powerful Nagre family, headed by Bachchan’s Subhash Nagre. The family is shown to be running a parallel government in the state.
The first part came in 2005, its sequel, titled, “Sarkar Raj” and “Sarkar 3” came out in 2008 and 2017. Actors like Supriya Pathak, Kay Kay Menon, Abhishek Bachchan, and Amit Sadh played pivotal roles in the franchise.
At the Red Lorry Film Festival here, Varma spoke about his next project.
“I’m also making ‘Sarkar 4’. But after I made that statement, you also have to know the old English saying, the proof of the pudding is in eating. So, whether I do it or not, we see that at the end of the year.”
The filmmaker, who attended the screening of his film "Shiva" at the festival, said he is also making “Syndicate”, a thriller movie.
“After a long time, I came back to Bombay recently and I took the decision to do a film, ‘Syndicate’, which might seem very high handed. I decided to wash away all my sins and shock everybody (with my filmmaking),” he said, without divulging plot and cast details.
The last few films of Varma, once celebrated as a maverick filmmaker in Hindi cinema with hits such as "Shiva", "Satya", "Company", "Koun" and "Bhoot", have not done well.
Speaking about the highs and lows of his career, Varma said he attained both success and failure due to arrogance and carelessness.
Calling himself a thick skin guy, the director said nothing bothers him.
“Arrogance is about taking it for granted that I can do this with my left hand, carelessness is about not bothering about the consequences. I think inherently that is the same reason my good films also came (about).
"Because I didn't care about how films should be made and to follow a pattern in terms of casting or the subject matters I choose, so, the good and bad also came from the same source.”
Varma joked that he started making flop films after he started to rely on bound scripts.
"I never had a script in ‘Satya’. I kept on trying to improvise it on a day-by-day basis. I did some things which nobody will believe. Like, I suddenly thought of an idea and called Makrand Deshpande and asked him where he is. He said he was at home.
"I told him, 'Can you come to the shoot in Bandra, I'm just thinking about killing your character?’. He came and then I shot that. So, if Makarand Deshpande was not available that day, I wouldn't have done that. Somebody asked me how can you take decision like that, and I said, 'That's what happens in real life. People suddenly die out of nowhere,” he recalled.
On a query about recent films and filmmakers he admires, Varma said he liked “Dhurandhar” and added that while Steven Spielberg remains his all-time favourite filmmaker, he finds Aditya Dhar to be among the most promising directors from the current generation.
“‘Dhurandar’ is the best film that I’ve watched in the last 20 years,” he said.
The Hyderabad-born filmmaker, who made his debut as a director with “Shiva”, said it’s a film that cannot be made in today’s time as it’s not “relevant”.
“Shiva” starring Nagarjuna in the titular role not only revolutionised Telugu cinema but also introduced audiences to the raw and undistorted realities of student politics.
The film was first made in Telugu and later remade in Hindi in the subsequent year. It follows the life of a college fresher (Nagarjuna), who stands up against the students' union president and a group of gangsters.
Varma said he drew inspiration from several sources to make the film. Some were from real-life and some from the movies he admired. He said he was influenced by Spielberg’s visual approach and took the thematic inspiration for the film from Bruce Lee’s “The Way of the Dragon”.