In a candid revelation, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has shed light on the strained dynamics and lasting impact of the monumental box-office failure of his 2015 period crime drama, Bombay Velvet. The film, which completed a decade last year, continues to be a sore point, particularly for its leading man, Ranbir Kapoor.
The Uncomfortable Aftermath of a Flop
Speaking exclusively to Screen, Kashyap disclosed that his relationship with Ranbir Kapoor became distant following the film's disastrous reception. He admitted to actively avoiding meetings with both Kapoor and his co-star Anushka Sharma in the immediate aftermath. "We don't meet often. Whenever we meet, we just hug and greet each other. And at the beginning, I just didn't know how to face them because they had given me a lot of trust and love," Kashyap confessed. The director was grappling with his own demons and chose to channel his energy into making a smaller, more personal film like Raman Raghav to recover.
The filmmaker also highlighted Ranbir Kapoor's ongoing irritation whenever the doomed project is mentioned in media interactions. "I think Ranbir was very upset... 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,'" Kashyap shared. However, he pointed out that constant public curiosity makes it impossible to sidestep the topic entirely.
Bizarre Blame Game: The 'Hair' Theory
One of the most shocking post-mortem analyses of the film's failure came from the studio's research team. Kashyap revealed that according to their findings, a primary reason audiences rejected the film was Ranbir Kapoor's hairstyle. In the film, Kapoor sported a distinctive curled-up look, a deliberate creative choice by the team.
"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... and because of that it didn't get an opening," Kashyap recounted. He dismissed this conclusion as utterly absurd, stating it was one of the most ridiculous reasons he had ever heard for a film's commercial failure.
Original Vision and Casting Shuffle
Kashyap also unveiled a key piece of cinematic trivia: Bombay Velvet was initially written with Ranveer Singh in mind for the lead role. At the time, Singh was a fresher face in the industry. However, the studio financing the project insisted on casting the then bigger star, Ranbir Kapoor, to justify the film's escalated budget.
"The film was not a high-budget film initially. It was sold at a very high budget... Earlier, when I wrote it, it was for Ranveer Singh... But everybody sold it on the basis of Ranbir, and the actor changed," Kashyap explained. He admitted it took him nearly a year to mentally adjust to this significant casting alteration and reconceive the project around Kapoor.
The experience of Bombay Velvet was so scarring for Kashyap that he vowed never to work with major stars again, a promise he has largely kept in his subsequent filmography. The film, released on May 15, 2015, remains a pivotal case study in Bollywood about the pressures of big-budget filmmaking, studio interference, and the long shadow a high-profile failure can cast on professional relationships.
