Three years ago Sanjay Dutt launched his production house Sanjay Dutt Productions Pvt Ltd, but his pending commitments prevented him from starting work on his home productions. “My election campaigning delayed my pending shoots. I thought I should complete those projects first — and they were all multi-star, big budget films (Blue, All The Best, No Problem, Knock Out, Lamhaa). So I had to put my plans for home productions on hold. It would have been unfair to start at the cost of other producers.”
Now Sanjay is all set to revive his banner. He has signed David Dhawan, Rohit Jugraj, Soham Shah, Milan Luthria and Apoorva Lakhia for five films to be made in the next few years. However, we won’t know about these films because he doesn’t want to give away details about the first film yet. “That will be a big announcement. I don’t want to talk about it now.” But he is open for every genre: “I have a passion for acting and filmmaking. I have worked in all sorts of movies: action, romance, comedy. I want to make good commercial cinema, never mind the genre. Maybe even parallel cinema, the kind my father used to love.”
Sanjay takes his role as a producer very seriously. Talking about his new production office, he said, “We have a fixed staff, headed by Dharam Oberoi, while the rest are change from production to production. We have a professional team for every department; considering today’s market, I know I need a strong business team and not just a creative one.”
So how do his home productions fit into Sanjay’s already now very busy schedule? “I will complete my pending commitments and then adjust dates for my banner. I have been doing three to four movies a year. From this year onward, I will reduce one outside production and start doing one of my home productions instead.”
One of these outside productions might be a film with JP Dutta with whom Sanjay has worked before including the fabulous Hathyar (1989), Kshatriya and LOC Kargil. At a recent meeting Sanjay decided spontaneously to work with JP again. “When I met him I saw the same fire that I’d had seen in him earlier. I know we’ll make a great film together. We don’t have filmmakers like him any more. My father and I were together in JP’s Kshatriya. I can never forget that.”
