EXCLUSIVE | Zee5’s ‘Gyaarah Gyaarah’ and Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga on 'KILL' success: 'Kalki 2898 AD did really well, but we didn't change our release date because...'

“Time is a flat circle,” Nietzsche once said. But what if that circle could be bent, twisted, and manipulated? ZEE5, India’s largest home-grown video streaming platform, is all set to shatter the boundaries of time and space with the mind-bending trailer of ‘Gyaarah Gyaarah.’ Set to premiere on August 9, this Karan Johar and Guneet Monga Kapoor co-production questions the viewers on the possibility of altering present and future by changing the past.

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Monga Kapoor, spoke about the unique narrative of the show, and also the success of ‘KILL’.

Edited excerpts from the interview

What does the success of KILL mean to you?

Success of KILL means to me a lot of joy, self faith, I think, we tried to do something new as always. We tried to take something to the world and it means, that we can do incredible storytelling from India that travels to the whole world, which is kind of being the mantra of and all our work. And KILL is again a testimony of that that we have been able to translate something that we created here in India to the west in a big way and a start to many things. You know, even for our technicians, for our actors, for our language, for our craft to be taken, and to be seen widely is the joy that I get as a producer.

How different is Gyaarah Gyaarah that will soon stream on Zee5?

This has my heart. It’s actually a police procedural with 2 cops set in two different timelines. The one is in 1990 and one is in 2016, and they are solving cases. And, when one gives a tip to another, it leads to butterfly effect. And that’s for the audience to see how that’ll be taken in India. So I hope it’s seen widely and, seen for what it is and appreciated and understood. Umesh Bist, he’s my favorite filmmaker. I say this on record. I’m obsessed and in love with his craft, his mind, his thought process, his writing, his visual description. We started our relationship in Pagglait, and now it is Gyaarah Gyaarah. It’s been incredible. More power to him and I hope I get to make all his things.

How much inputs did you have when it came to casting for Gyaarah Gyaarah especially for Raghav Juyal?

I love him as an actor, and, I was very gung-ho about Raghav. I pushed both Raghav and Umesh to work together. I have played that role if I say so myself. But, he’s an incredible actor and he blew us away with his work in Kill, his audition for Kill and then his work in Kill and his brilliance on the camera. He just is somebody who shines, you know. He improvises. He shines. He’s brilliant with his craft. So I was very keen for Umesh and Raghav to meet and explore, and I’m just glad it worked out.

Dhairya is true to his name. He’s playing an inspector in the 90’s. So he’s somebody who’s the one in past. His was a great screen presence and this is one of his best works. He’s very grounded, humble. He’s very tall and has a huge presence, but as an actor, very vulnerable. There’s also very very beautiful vulnerable side to him, which kind of magical, you know, you’re like this more than 6 feet.

Kritika Kamra is a brilliant actor, and we’ve seen so much of her work before. And, I don’t think anybody would have pulled this off, because she plays across timelines. She plays like her younger self and she plays in this current timeline. And you will see Kritika’s work also in this and. She tested for the role and it was mind blowing and we were just, like, how amazing she is.

There was a time when Dharma was about these sweeping, larger than life romances. But ever since the collaboration between you and Karan Johar has happened, I can see a lot of realism that has come into the stories. What do you have to say about this collaboration?

I think it is really, a very, very empowering collaboration. When you ask me what is the first word that comes to me, and I think what the mind is just empowering. It’s like all the freedom in the world. They trust us as filmmakers. Our first collaboration was with The Lunchbox. They released Lunchbox in India and, made it such a large conversation in India, you know, getting into the marketing nobody understood. So I really think Karan is a huge cinephile and understands cinema, and he understands what the audience wants and what is commercial. So definitely the profile of Dharma is very large. But in the heart, when it comes to storytelling, that’s how KILL happened. I think he’d heard the first half and he said, ‘I love it. Let’s do it.’

And I actually went to him saying, there is pottering gore we have. He’s like go for it. So I actually asked him a few times. He’s like we signed up for it.

You know, we signed up for extreme action. We recorded it now. We stay too true to the genre. I want to. But, you know, that single ounce of doubt is you have on the journey thinking about commercial India, commercial people will understand, not understand. At that time of time, you don’t know that this will be a global success. You’re putting something together and you’re vulnerable, but Dharma is very empowering in their in terms of their creative vision, in terms of monetary strength, in terms of a partnership, marketing, everything. So it’s beautiful.

You not only stood by the content but you also stood by the release date because there was a film that was releasing on 5th but they postponed it because of Kalki but you stayed intact. Were you always confident that this will be a film that will find an audience?

Release date is a bit of a touchy subject for me because we were ready. Actually, we also were, in line with our American release. So because Lionsgate was releasing in the US, we also had to come day on day with them. And, Lionsgate chose 4th July, which is the Independence Day. They gave it a very big release there and we had to step up to that. It’s not like only from India, you’re distributing the whole world like every other Hindi film. You have one distributor in India, and you have 1 distributor in US and UK and Canada, and then you have your UAE. There are different distributors with their money and they’ve given advances towards the film and bought that territory and their advances and their strategy.

So we had to all align, and this is the first time doing something like this where it is the first foreign language film for Lionsgate. So it was a great strategy, and a huge pull at the weekend. But, yes, Kalki really, really did very well. But I’m glad Kill found it’s love from the people and I hope they also love Gyaarah Gyaarah.

Working as an Entertainment journalist for over five years, covering stories, reporting, and interviewing various film personalities of the film industry see more