Samrat Prithviraj director opens up on film’s poor box office performance: ‘Akshay Kumar had tears…’

Akshay Kumar starrer Samrat Prithviraj, based on the life of life of Prithviraj Chauhan, a Rajput king from the Chahamana dynasty released in June 2022 and turned out to be a colossal disappointment at the box office. The film was bashed for its casting and distorting historical facts.

Now, the director of the movie Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi opened up about the box office letdown and said, “Akshay Kumar had tears in his eyes after it failed.”

Talking to Mukesh Khanna on his YouTube channel, Dwivedi said that even before the release, the audience had picked up on many elements of Samrat Prithviraj and were criticising it. “They were objecting to how Akshay was looking in the film. One of the objections was about how the actress (Manushi Chillar) was so much younger and Akshay, who was 55 then, was playing the role of a 26-year-old king. Then there was a question about his moustache as to why did he not have a real moustache. They even said that the frame of his body was nothing like Prithviraj. Today, honestly, I would like to confess that most of these objections were right,” he said.

The filmmaker said that he was “not ashamed” to admit that the team did not fulfil its responsibility towards the audience. “In this film, different people had different roles and responsibilities. I was the weakest of the lot. Had people fulfilled their duties, then this question would not have come up?”

He added that after the debacle of Samrat Prithviraj, he and Akshay Kumar have learnt that “no one should tamper with history”. Dwivedi continued, “Even after the film, I told Akshay that this country sees you as a national icon…” and when he shared the criticism that the film was getting, Akshay had “tears in his eyes”. “Akshay is a successful actor and he has that place in my life where I can criticise him to his face. I did not just criticise him in words, I also wrote to him about it on email, and even after that, there was no tension in our relationship,” he said. The actor and director later worked together on Ram Setu and OMG 2, where Dwivedi was the creative producer of the film.

Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi later spoke about his collaboration with producer Aditya Chopra and said that he is actively involved in the films he produces but here, their idea of a historical film on Prithviraj was poles apart. “People who get a producer like Aditya Chopra are quite fortunate. He is a sorted man who sees the project through but he has his own vision, and that was with regards to Prithviraj as well. He is not just a financier, he is also a creative person. He had certain ideas which should have been discussed in the beginning. I think his and my idea of history is poles apart. There was never a point where I did not express my objections to him. But despite putting across my objections, I did the film anyway,” he shared. The director said that one person even commented that “this looks like the lead actor is wearing clothes from Manyavar,” and he shared this with Chopra.

“During the making, YRF believed that this film will work wonders. No one thought that this would be the fate of the film,” Dwivedi shared.

Samrat Prithviraj also featured Sanjay Dutt and Sonu Sood in prominent roles.