Nineteen years after Mohit Suri’s 2007 action romance Awarapan failed to make a dent at the box office, producer Vishesh Bhatt was confident that would change with the sequel, Awarapan 2. While Emraan Hashmi reprises his iconic role of Shivam Pandit, Bilal Siddiqi takes over from Shagufta Rafique as the screenwriter, and Nitin Kakkar from Mohit Suri as the director. In an exclusive interview with SCREEN, Vishesh discusses why he decided to make a sequel despite the first film’s failure, why Suri didn’t return to helm the film, and his terms with uncle and mentor Mahesh Bhatt despite the latter’s fallout with the former’s father, Mukesh Bhatt.
What made you continue the journey of Shivam Pandit although he was presumed dead at the end of the first film?
I felt there was a spiritual and emotional element to it. There was a voice within me, which asked me to tap more into that spiritual element. It’s great that today, because of the internet, people interpret so fast. They were able to see if Shivam is talking to God through “Tera Mera Rishta Purana” in the first part, now God is talking back to him in the sequel. That relationship is very important to someone as broken as Shivam. Emraan and I have experienced the heartache of the journey of Awarapan. We’d discussed that we’d take on this, and prove to ourselves that Awarapan was a good story and a good film to make. I wanted to reclaim the market and business side of Awarapan.
