Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. is one of those movies that is often watched by cinema lovers on their lowest of days for some motivation. The satirical comedy-drama film directed by Rajkumar Hirani in his debut ended up receiving a national award and eventually became an evergreen film. The film was also playing across scores of screens in the country, achieving a silver jubilee status. But did you know it initially opened to empty theatres?
During an interview with Bollywood Hungama, producer of the 2003 film, Vidhu Vinod Chopra recalled how Munna Bhai MBBS’s opening on the big screen wasn’t as expected. He stated that Rajkumar Hirani was very upset thinking “I lost a lot of money.”
This is when he offered Rs 11,000 to Hirani but he refused to take anything. Chopra then told him that it was for his next movie and asked him to make another one as he thought this was a “great film.” He also offered Rs 4 crore and told Raju to work on his next as he didn’t care if Munna Bhai worked or not.
But the film started to pick up pace after Monday, but the seats were empty during the weekends. “I didn’t really wait for the film to become a success for me to make another film,” Chopra divulged. After watching the movie, one of the distributors from Tamil Nadu, who had first agreed to distribute the film, had later refused to go ahead with it.
This is when Chopra intervened and called his distributor friend Shyam Shroff and got a show added in Satyam, a popular cinema hall in Tamil Nadu. The team managed to get one single show for the 11:45 am show for Munna Bhai. And from that solo show, they were able to make Rs 1.67 crore, Chopra revealed in the same interview.
Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. is considered to be a landmark movie in the history of Indian cinema soon after which, a sequel, Lage Raho Munna Bhai, was released in 2006. It stars Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Dutt, Gracy Singh, Jimmy Sheirgill, Arshad Warsi, Rohini Hattangadi, and Boman Irani in key roles.
