Bombay Velvet was one of Anurag Kashyap’s biggest films. Till then, the filmmaker had made independent films that had limited star power but earned critical acclaim. In Bombay Velvet, he had a ₹100 crore budget along with the combined stardom of Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma. Yet, the film was a massive box office bomb. In a recent interview, Anurag recalled how the studio’s research team provided a bizarre explanation for the film’s lack of connection with the audience.
Ranbir Kapoor in a still from Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet. ‘People didn’t like Ranbir’s curled hair’
In a recent interview with Screen, Anurag recalled the discussions around Bombay Velvet’s failure after its release. “The debacle of the film was such that when they did the research, the shocking thing was, people didn’t like Ranbir’s hair. They said that audiences got upset with Ranbir’s hair, because he had curled it up. And it was a choice that we all made; we designed it like that. And when I heard this, I was like, that’s the most absurd reason I can hear. One can say, ‘Oh, the film didn’t work for me,’ but coming up and saying hair didn’t work, and because of that it didn’t get an opening, and people didn’t go to see the film because they were put off by the hair, was absurd,” Anurag recalled.
Bombay Velvet, released in 2015, starred Ranbir and Anushka alongside Karan Johar, with a young Vicky Kaushal in a supporting role. The film, made on a ₹118-crore budget, only grossed ₹43 crore worldwide.
Ranbir on Bombay Velvet’s failure
In the same interview, Anurag recalled that Ranbir gets upset when Anurag talks about the film. He said, “I think Ranbir was very upset about that, and he keeps saying, ‘Why do you keep talking about Bombay Velvet? Just ignore it. The film didn’t work, it didn’t work, but you don’t have to talk about it all the time.’ But people ask me questions all the time, how can I just ignore that?”
After Bombay Velvet’s failure, Anurag bounced back with critically acclaimed films like Raman Raghav, Manmarziyaan, Kennedy, and Nishaanchi. However, box office success has continued to elude him.