‘Maestro’ would’ve been a treat for rural audiences: Merlapaka Gandhi

Hyderabad: With a female antagonist and dark humour, screenplay has to be taut. ‘Maestro’, the remake of Hindi superhit film ‘Andhadhun’, has made director Merlapaka Gandhi think out of the box when the offer came to him from actor Nithiin.

“When I watched ‘Andhadhun’, I felt if at all a remake has to be made in Telugu, it should be done by me. I know what changes it should have deviating from the original. Of course, the love story should have more space and there should be touching elements in the end to elevate it. And it is not easy for any director to adapt to the genre of dark comedy,” the director says.

Director Gandhi is aware of the pitfalls and the criticism that he could face if the remake goes bizarrely wrong. “We can’t make the film in Telugu by watching the original frame by frame. Audiences might troll me for spoiling the essence and the soul of the film,” he laughs.

Gandhi went with a slightly peculiar approach of first shooting the climax part, rather than doing it from the beginning. “It’s so uncommon from what I’ve been doing all these years as a filmmaker. Because of the pandemic-induced lockdown, Dubai portions had to be shot first — which was the climax sequence. Looking at the rushes, I was able to breathe. Watching Nithiin on-screen, as a young visually-impaired pianist — a character he never played before, I was very impressed,” adds the director.

Gandhi says that actor Tamannaah Bhatia, who played the female protagonist in ‘Maestro’, was never in his mind before the pre-production. “I actually wanted someone younger than actor Tabu to reprise the character Simi Sinha. I guess Tamannaah made that difference.”

Other characters in the film include Harshavardhan who plays the doctor while singer Mangli has a small role. The film also features Racha Ravi, Jishu Sengupta, VK Naresh and Nabha Natesh, who is one of the female leads.

Initially, ‘Maestro’ was scheduled for a theatrical release on July 11. However, the second wave played the spoil sport. Had it been released in theatres, even rural folks would have enjoyed it easily,” he added.

After ‘Maestro’, the director says he decided not to remake films in future. Stating how remakes take a lot of time, the director says he wouldn’t like to risk himself making a movie that fits into the bracket of commercial cinema. The movie is releasing on Disney+Hotstar this Friday.

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