Featuring Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, and Karan Johar in the lead roles, Bombay Velvet was Anurag Kashyap’s most ambitious project and one of the most talked-about films of the past decade.
However, the period gangster drama bombed at the box office, received harsh criticism from reviewers, and became one of the earliest targets of social media trolling.
Talking about the film before its release, Anurag Kashyap had shared how he wrote the film in 2016 keeping Saif Ali Khan in mind. Later, when he offered it to Aamir Khan and Hrtithik Roshan; they rejected it. The Ugly director even tried making it with Ranveer Singh, but no producer was willing to bet Rs 100 crore on him 9 years back.
Sharing why he signed Ranbir Kapoor for his magnum opus, the filmmaker told PTI, “Bombay Velvet was expensive from the beginning. It is the most tight budget film of my career. It is a Rs 300 crore movie that we have made into Rs 90 crore. I wanted someone who was not only a good actor but also made it possible for me to raise that kind of money. My first choice when I wrote the film in 2006 was Saif Ali Khan. From there it went to Aamir and Hrithik. This film has gone around before landing with Ranbir. We also tried to make it with Ranveer Singh but we could raise only Rs 40 to 50 crore.”
Made in Rs 90 crore, Bombay Velvet couldn’t even earn half its budget as it earned just Rs 25 crore net in India and grossed Rs 42 crore worldwide. It is often listed among India’s biggest flops ever. After Bombay Velvet, Anurag Kashyap returned to his roots and made a small-budget serial killer thriller film Raman Raghav 2.0 featuring Vicky Kaushal and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.