Kangana Ranaut on 'Manikarnika' crossing Rs 100 crore mark: None of us expected competition from Vicky Kaushal's 'Uri'Author : AZIndia News Desk
Feb 19 (AZINS) Kangana Ranaut's directorial debut 'Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi' has proved to be a hit at the box office. The film has crossed the Rs 100-crore mark and the actor-director is ecstatic and rightly so.
In a recent interview with Mid Day, talking about the film's feat, Kangana said, "There was a time when the film's release looked difficult. But after we made the movie, we knew we had a product to be proud of."
Manikarnika released on the same day as Nawazuddin Siddiqui's 'Thackeray', another biopic based on Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackrey. However, the film that it faced a stiff competition from at the box office was Vicky Kaushal's 'URI: The Surgical Strike', which released three weeks before on January 11.
Kangana admitted that her team never considered 'URI' to be a threat to their Rani Laxmi biopic.
"None of us expected the competition we got from Uri. It was another patriotic film that shared the same theme - fighting back for the nation. It was in its third week, but it still put up quite a tough fight," said Kangana.
Uri has turned out to be the first blockbuster of 2019 so far with over Rs 200 crore in its kitty.
Further talking about the audience's response and the director-credit controversy with Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi, Kangana added, "Nothing succeeds like success. These people would have disowned the film if it was bad. These are the people who had abandoned it. [But] this is a good fight, where the cast and crew are bickering over who owns the movie more. We were able to make a clean film, no one has blamed me for distorting history. Personally, there is no controversy of great magnitude here. I don't see any negativity attached to it outside the industry. I am satisfied with the audience's response."
Kangana feels her film has made a considerable headway for women-centric films. "It has been made on 1/3rd the budget of any period film, or even a regular commercial movie, for that matter. And we have recovered the cost. I am glad it has become a landmark film. We have made considerable headway for women-centric films," added Kangana.