James Cameron told me ‘Shikara’ reminded him of ‘Doctor Zhivago’: Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Mumbai: Filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra's "Shikara" may not have been a box office success but it managed to strike a chord with Oscar-winning director James Cameron who was reminded of his favourite film "Doctor Zhivago" when he saw the Hindi movie.

The "12th Fail" director was speaking at a session on the day one of IFP Season 14, where he recalled bonding with the "Avatar" filmmaker over a glass of wine.

"Shikara" followed the love story of a Kashmiri couple against the backdrop of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s.

Chopra said his team asked him if he had read about the reaction to the 2020 film on social media but he was focused on his next project.

"I didn’t see the failure because when James Cameron saw the film in New Zealand, he walked up to me and said, ‘This film reminds me of my favourite film in the world, ‘Doctor Zhivago’," he said, referring to the 1965 love story set in war-struck Russia.

Cameron isn't much of a drinker but he and Chopra sat in a cinema hall for a drink.

"Three bottles of wine were arranged for us. He was in the middle of shooting ‘Avatar’ (sequel) and we drank till early hours of morning. That for me is success. Your success or failure comes from you. You need to do your best, if your best is not good enough, don’t worry, do it again," Chopra said on Saturday.

The filmmaker said he plans to re-release “Shikara” next year with its original title “Love Letter from Kashmir”.

Chopra, also known for directing films such as “Parinda”, “1942: A Love Story”, and “Mission Kashmir”, said even though his debut home production “Munna Bhai MBBS” (2003) was a box office failure, he believed in director Rajkumar Hirani’s vision.

"When ‘Munna Bhai MBBS’ released, it flopped on day one, no one went to see it."

He wanted to sell it to a south India-based distributor who promised to give Rs 11 lakh for the film. After watching the film he said "Munna Bhai MBBS" won't work beyond Mumbai's suburban area Borivali and the deal fell through.

"We managed to get one morning show in a theatre in Tamil Nadu where the film did a business of over Rs 1 crore,” the filmmaker recalled.

When Hirani met him a day after the film released, Chopra said he gave him Rs 11,000.

“But he said, ‘I won’t take it because the film is a flop’. I told him, ‘I’m paying you this money for the next movie’. Eventually he got Rs. 11 lakhs, Rs. 51 lakhs, Rs. one crore and God knows how many crores… (as it did well),” he said.

"Don’t lose your belief system because the industry will try and corrupt your soul, and say, ‘Do this or that, this is what sells’... I believed in the film,” he added.