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Filmmaker duo Raj and DK on Saturday celebrated six years of their hit horror comedy Stree. The film, which was directed by Amar Kaushik–who has also helmed the latest sequel–was written and produced by the filmmaker duo. Raj and DK took to Instagram and shared details regarding the inception of the film, which starred Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee and Pankaj Tripathi.
It was August 26, 2017, when their Sidharth Malhotra starrer A Gentleman released and was a box office washout. “Two back-to-back studio films failed… Typically, this type of situation means the end of a filmmaking career,” the duo wrote. It was also the day it rained heavily in Mumbai and with a “heavy heart”, Raj walked out in foot deep water to a coffeeshop with my laptop.
“So, I typed out on a blank page, ‘O Stree, Kal Aana!’ I dug into one of my lasting childhood visuals-every other wall in my hometown Tirupati, covered with the scribbling, ‘O Stree, repu raa..’ Nobody knew what the story behind that was. All they knew was a strange urban legend that a scary stree will come into your house if you don’t write this. Why? How? What does she want? No one knew.
“And I thought, what if she can’t read Telugu? Why is she getting fooled by a silly trick to come tomorrow, again and again? What if she still didn’t care and wanted to come inside? I had let these crazy/silly ideas float in my head for years. Then as I was discussing with DK, it hit us that this can’t just be a silly comedy or a silly horror film. It can be so much more.”
It was then when the duo hit upon the idea of making a “gender reversal” film, imagining what if men were the ones afraid to go out late at night and had to go through what innumerable women have to deal with every day.
Amar Kaushik, Raj Nidimoru, Shraddha Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao on the sets of Stree.
Raj and DK shared the original artwork for Stree.
The filmmaker said many characters and incidents from their school days made it into the film: Vicky, Jana, Rudra bookstore, Shankar Shastri, ‘Friendship’, tailor-shop. Raj and DK went into “hyperdrive” and finished the script in three weeks.
“A little coffeeshop called Potluck in Andheri West became D2R office 🙂 That’s where we met all the crew, all the actors, discovered a great writer-friend at the next table, and discussed endlessly how to start production on this film (like so many filmmakers do at coffeeshops). Ironically as soon as the script was done and the shoot was getting ready, the BMC pulled down that sweet little coffeeshop.
“Cut to: A crew ready to buy into this silly story was put together. A cast was cajoled into doing this film despite it being nonconforming. A film started getting shot despite there being no precedent for this kind. A super friendly fun shoot happened in the tiniest of the towns, Chanderi, where we stayed in guesthouses and schools, shot all over the town and played Mafia at nights. Many lasting bonds were formed.”
Finally, Raj and DK said, they made Stree at the “smallest budget possible” and dared to go into theatres “without a formula” and not following the norms. “Edits were changed, interval points were invented… But the original core story only got stronger at every step. It was the fastest film we ever made. I guess that is what happens when you have a point to prove, to yourself. On the cusp of the release, we knew something magical was going to happen. And it happened!
“Aug 31, 2018. A ridiculous story, defying all odds, became a phenomenon. Glad we went back to our roots. Glad we stuck to the films we want to make. Glad this was the first Hindi film we produced. A renewed second innings of D2R Films started, on our terms with our kind of stories and with no compromises. The Family Man, Farzi, Guns & Gulaabs, Cinemabandi, Citadel Honey Bunny, Gulkanda Tales, Rakt Brahmand… all followed.”
The filmmaker said as they now look back nothing wouldn’t have been possible without that little coffeeshop, the failures, the hardships, the amazing two- decade-old friendships, and the firm belief that even our kind of stories can break mainstream norms.
“I guess every failure is an opportunity to grow. And every heartbreak is a chance to cleanse and recreate. Thank you, wholeheartedly, for everyone who backed us, believed in us and loved our stories,” the note concluded.
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