Anees Bazmee says he ended up in hospital because ‘nobody liked Welcome’ after first screening: ‘Tension ho gayi thi’

Director Anees Bazmee, who is basking in the success of his film Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, said in an interview that he gets a sense of how his films are going to perform at the box office before they release, even if people around him have differing opinions.
He revealed that he received terrible feedback after screening his Welcome for the first time. Starring Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar and Nana Patekar, Welcome became a runaway hit, and is still regarded as among Bazmee’s best films.

He said in Hindi, “When we make films, we watch them for editing, mixing, and many other times. We start getting a sense of how they’ve turned out. For example, I made the film Welcome, nobody liked it after the first trial screening. I asked them what they didn’t like about it, and they said, ‘It’s not funny at all’. I became stressed about taking the film to the public.”
Bazmee continued, “I decided to write the screenplay again, I was in the hospital at the time because of high blood-pressure. I was very stressed. But when I wrote the script, I became doubly sure that Welcome was a fantastic film and I had no idea why people hadn’t liked it. Feroze Nadiadwala became stressed and asked me what to do. I told him that there’s nothing to worry about and that according to me, it’s a superhit film. To his credit, we released the film without any changes.”Best of Express PremiumPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium
Bazmee said that the same situation transpired with the film Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha, after which audiences were aghast at how he’d ignored Ajay Devgn’s action hero image. “Yeh kya bana diya hai (What have you made)?” he said people asked him.
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, starring Kartik Aaryan, Kiara Advani and Tabu, is a return to form for Bazmee, who last directed the flops Pagalpanti and It’s My Life. The film has made over Rs 130 crore at the box office, and is expected to finish its run with at least Rs 150 crore, making it only the third bona fide Hindi hit of the year after Gangubai Kathiawadi and The Kashmir Files.