When Muna Bhai hit the cinemas, there was no one to watch: the producers

Munnabhai MBBS was one of the most hit films of Bollywood. Rajkumar Hirani’s film achieved silver jubilee status, meaning it remained in theaters for 25 years.

In its 26th week of release, the film was running on 300 screens across India, but did you know that the theaters were completely deserted at the time of its release on 19 December 2003, leading the filmmakers to believe that their investment would sink. is the one

In a recent interview, the film’s producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra recalled Rajkumar Hirani’s reaction and told Bollywood Hungama that ‘Hirani was upset after seeing empty theaters after the release of Manabhai MBBS, thinking that I has sunk a lot of capital.’

According to Vidhu Vinod Chopra: ‘At that time I told Raju that this is a small amount. He said that I will not take anything from him. I said no problem, we will make another film. But it’s a great movie. At that time we had about four crore rupees. I was thinking about making another film. I didn’t care if Muna bhai succeeds or not. Even though the film started gaining public attention after Monday, the seats were empty over the weekend.’

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Earlier speaking at the Kellogg School of Management, Rajkumar Hirani had revealed how a distributor in Tamil Nadu initially agreed to distribute the film, but then refused after seeing the film.

Hirani said that after watching the film, Mohammad Bhai (the Tamil distributor) told us that he could not take up the film as no one would understand the story. It was decided to refund their money and this happened just three days before the release of the film.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra said, ‘I called up one of my distributor friends, Shyam Shroff, and booked a show of Mannabhai in a big theater in Tamil Nadu. They gave me only one show that too at 11:45 AM. But later the film earned Rs 1.67 crore from Tamil Nadu alone.’

The film starring Sanjay Dutt, which is also the last film of his father Sunil Dutt, is considered to be the most successful film in the history of Indian cinema. The film also had a sequel, Lage Raho Manna Bhai, which was released in 2006. The sequel was also widely acclaimed and was a huge success at the box office.

Apart from Sanjay Dutt, Manabhai MBBS also starred Arshad Warsi, Gracie Singh, Jimmy Shergill and Boman Irani in lead roles.