Aditya Dhar reveals he was called out for rope-roping Vicky Kaushal in URI: ‘They said we made a huge mistake’

Filmmaker Aditya Dhar recently unveiled his directorial debut URI: The Surgical Strike. While promoting his upcoming film Article 370, he said that there was a lot of opposition to Vicky Kaushal being cast in the 2019 blockbuster. He even opened up about how he stuck with his choice of casting, despite everyone saying they made a mistake.

In an interview with India Today, Aditya shared, “Everyone went to Ronnie (Scruvala) and said you have made a huge mistake; you have made a huge mistake with someone who has never done a solo hero commercial. Slender Boy makes a war movie together, and you put such an important film on his shoulders.”

He added, “So our ultimate belief is that we are all working towards something extraordinary and we work 10 times harder than anyone in this industry because we want to prove to them that this is not where you come from place.’ That doesn’t matter; it’s more about where you’re going,” he said.

Aditya, who was originally scheduled to work with Vicky on Ashwatthama Immortal, recently opened up about why the film was shelved. At a recent press conference, Dhar revealed that the mythical superhero action film was “too big” for an Indian film, so the team knew it was “impossible to make it” given the budget constraints.

“We have put it on the back burner now. Honestly, the vision we all had was too big for Indian films. The kind of VFX quality we are looking for, no one here is even working towards it,” he shared.

“Immortal Ashwatthama” was originally scheduled to release in 2020, but the shooting was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Its production was originally scheduled to start in 2022, but was delayed again due to budget-related issues.

Earlier, Vicky Kaushal also called the film’s repeated delays “frustrating”. “There would have been a better time to make this movie. What’s even more frustrating is that any movie should be made at a better time. Every time this movie is bigger than me or any individual affiliated with it . So, we have to choose a suitable time to shoot the film. So, we are waiting for that moment to come,” he told PTI.