Hrithik Roshan’s ‘Bang Bang’ and Shahid Kapoor’s ‘Haider’ hit the screens simultaneously, with the former quickly gaining the upper hand which may have given much heartburn to the ‘loser’, but the entire issue was quickly turned from competition to cooperation, subtly, but effectively and significantly, all of it was done in the public domain. In Shahid Kapoor’s words, here’s how:
Hrithik Roshan gave the ‘Bang Bang Dare’ to all his Bollywood friends right before the film’s release. On the day his film started competing at box office and audience’s attention for ‘Haider’, Hrithik tweeted his ‘Bang Bang Dare’ challenge to Shahid Kapoor, bringing both of them under the limelight – in short, sharing.
Asked about whether he took up Hrithik Roshan’s dare and did he watch ‘Bang Bang’ challenge, Shahid replies:
“Yes, I did watch ‘Bang Bang’ and actually put out a video on Thursday night. I went to PVR and saw the 11.10 show. We tweeted about it to each other. Neither of us had the opportunity to talk, but Hrithik sent a very kind message. So we have been kind of exchanging notes on a very public platform. But I have always appreciated his work.
“In fact, he is someone who has on various occasions inspired me as an actor. I am so happy that he was talking about Haider in such good spirit and that we were both talking about each other?s films without being competitive. It was really nice. That?s a good thing and everyone should chill out. It?s positive. We actually exchanged a few messages and he also said, ?dude let?s just change this thing of trying to pit people against each other? and it helped that our films are so different.
“The budgets are different, the sizes are different, the audience type is different. It?s like black and white; two different sides of cinema, so we didn?t even feel at any level that it was the same. And both of us wanted to dispel that notion of a clash.”