Pushkar-Gayatri Discuss The Hindi Remake Of Vikram Vedha

There's probably not a lot you can tell me about the Hindi remake of Vikram Vedha. But I have to ask: Is there a big change for the Hindi audience? Or are you mostly sticking to the same narrative?

Pushkar: We have strict orders from our producers to not get into the details of the film, but what I can tell you is that the soul of the film is pretty much the same. It's also pretty much the same plot. Despite that, it's a completely different film due to various factors. For us, it was like doing a whole new film. Though we knew all the beats of the story, we discovered a lot of new things. It will be interesting for those who have seen the Tamil version vis-a-vis seeing this.

When I asked Noomi Rapace why she didn't act in the English remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo she told me "repetition would be cynical." As storytellers, was that the satisfaction of telling this story because it's not the same thing?

Pushkar: No, the story is not different.

But then, what's the satisfaction? Why do it again?

Pushkar: We thought long and hard about it before we agreed to it.

You weren't just seduced by the idea of having Hrithik and Saif in the remake?

Pushkar: No, actually that happened later. Even before any actors joined the project, there were thoughts of remaking the film. It was a tough decision for us to make because all our life, we've refused to remake any of our films. Every month, we get calls asking us to remake our films in various languages. We refuse because we only want to make original content. However, in this case, we thought that there was another take on the characters. Rather than changing the story, we are now pitching the characters of Vikram and Vedha in a completely different way.

Also Read: 50 Films I Love: Vikram Vedha

So you chose to innovate within the lines?

Pushkar: Yeah, we didn't want to tamper with the guardrails of the story. The kick we got was in how we could take the same thing and do something completely different. Since we've always refused remakes, I thought maybe we could try this and see what we could do.

Gayatri: It's our own material too, which definitely makes a difference.

Pushkar: I think one big factor was the fact that the film was going to be remade for sure. We feared that the remake might end up being bad so rather than taking the risk of a poor remake made by someone else hurting our reputation, we elected to do it ourselves. Otherwise, we may have regretted giving away the rights.