As Dev.D gears up for a re-release, Anurag Kashyap says it can’t be made today: ‘Authenticity makes people uncomfortable’ | Bollywood News

3 min readMumbaiApr 23, 2026 09:40 PM Anurag Kashyap’s Dev.D changed the landscape of Hindi cinema when it released. If there was one film that truly put him on the map, it was this one, as his earlier projects were either never released (Paanch) or remained stuck in limbo (Black Friday, No Smoking). With this mad, musical love story, he created something that has only grown over time, aging like fine wine. This is why this cult classic, a cinephile favourite, is now being re-released in theatres.
‘Even Sacred Games won’t be possible today’
On the occasion, Anurag Kashyap was asked if a film like this could be made today. He was clear in his answer: “The system has changed. Even Sacred Games won’t be possible today, the authenticity makes people uncomfortable,” he told THR India. However, in the same conversation, Abhay Deol, the film’s lead, disagreed with his filmmaker. “That’s his perspective, someone else might come up with something relevant for this time.”
One of the interesting aspects of Dev.D is that it was co-written Vikramaditya Motwane, who had previously worked as an assant director on Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas, which, like Dev.D, is an adaptation of the same novel Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Motwane recently revealed that because he had worked so closely on Devdas with Bhansali, he was unhappy with the ending of Dev.D, so much so that he did not even attend the screening of the film.
‘I couldn’t understand why Anurag would change the climax’
“I remember there was a power cut at the premiere. I just walked off. I was very pissed off. I was so steeped in the story of Devdas after I had assed Sanjay Leela Bhansali on his adaptation that I couldn’t understand why Anurag would change the story,” However, now he agrees in retrospect he was wrong, “I was wrong… and I’m happy he chose the way that he chose.”
Interestingly, almost a decade ago, during the press event for Raman Raghav 2.0, when asked to name the most overrated film in India, Anurag Kashyap said, “It has to be Dev D.”
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Anurag Kashyap is currently gearing up for the release of his film Bandar, which stars Bob Deol. Vikramaditya Motwane is currently filming Ganguly, a biopic on cricketer Sourav Ganguly, with Rajkummar Rao essaying the titular role. Abhay Deol was last seen in the web series Trial Fire.