Ali Abbas Zafar “Web is a very liberating space for any filmmaker or storyteller. When you make a film for cinema, you have to tell a story in two hours. And, box office decides whether you have made a good or a bad film. You are more fearless when you work on web”.
He further adds – “My last three film have been with Salman Khan, and with that, box office sits like a baggage on your shoulder. I have been saying this to myself and my close friends that, when I used to do theatre in college, I would be very happy working on the stage because I was working without any fear and I felt the same while working on Tandav. I felt this is something very honest and true to me.”
He shares his commercial aesthetics did go well. He further says – “Because I have a commercial sensibility, I want the story to reach maximum number of people, (so) I have tried to use that ability to tell a story that’s universal. Politics inherently is universal. You can’t sit on the side. Even being apolitical is taking a political stand. This is not just a story of India but of every country, set-up or dynamics.”
Ali Abbas Zafar shares – “When Himanshu and I were working together, it became broader and I realized it can’t be done as a three-hour film. It needed to be a show. After Sultan, I met Aparna (Purohit, Head of India Originals at Amazon Prime Video) to pitch it to Amazon. We kept going back and forth. Tiger Zinda Hai happened, then Bharat released and the show kept getting pushed. But post Bharat, I realized I had to jump into it. That’s how it started”.