Kabir khan directorial 83 was released in December last year to glowing reviews. The film that chronicled India’s historic win at the Cricket World Cup, starred Ranveer Singh as veteran cricketer Kapil Dev, Saqib Saleem, Ammy Virk, Pankaj Tripathi, and Jatin Sarna, among others. However, shortly after its release, India once again saw a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases leading to several governments announcing restrictions and people unwilling to step into the theatres. as much as his earlier films have performed well, the box-office performance of ’83’ has been severely affected by the third wave of Covid-19.
Kabir in his recent chat with Film Companion opened up on this and admitted that he was dejected by the daily restrictions. However, he also admitted that he never considered even once an OTT release for the film adding that the film will continue playing on big screens even if only two are running. The director said, “There are definitely moments of despair and disappointment when every day you wake up and read about another state going down, another state shutting down theatres, another state putting a night curfew. So, yes, there are moments of disappointment. But I never got to the position of feeling low just because of the sheer love that was coming our way. The whole day you’d end up just reading messages,”
The filmmaker recalled that the former India cricket captain told him to ‘forget about the money,’ and focus on the positivity that was coming his way.
Kabir recalled how Kapil Dev, supported him during these tough times. He said, “Kapil sir, on the fourth day, when Delhi shut down, and it was like, let’s fight back, he said, ‘Kabir, you’ve already got your World Cup. This film that you’ve made is your World Cup. When we won the World Cup, we didn’t get money, we got respect, and it is because of that respect you made this film on us.”
