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Deshmukh, the latest Bhatt find and director of Jannat, speaks to Sandhya Iyer about why the Bhatts postponed its release, among other things

Jannat has been postponed, we hear?

Yes, it’s coming on May 16 now. It was supposed to release two weeks earlier but we decided against it, because Tashan is releasing next Friday and we’ve been told that Yash Raj have booked all major chains for the next two weeks. We didn’t mind coming a bit closer to Bhootnath, because that’s a different genre altogether. But we certainly didn’t want to get drowned out by Tashan. We faced something similar with Awarapan, where we clashed with Aap Ka Suroor and lost out. Himesh (Reshammiya’s) film got a big opening and we didn’t. And the tendency in the industry is that your film is assumed to be a failure if the opening is weak. That experience humbled us and we decided there’s no point in exposing a quality product.

You’ve assisted Mohit Suri for a couple of films…so is your style of filmmaking influenced from him?

I think all the films that Mohit has made, whether they clicked at the boxoffice or not, have been liked. Yes, both of us do believe in making sensible films and we come with no pre-concieved notions of how a film should be made.

But unlike Mohit, your film seems more glammed up. Is that how you like it?

Actually Mohit opted for a certain look in all his films keeping his subject and characters in mind. But maybe we were dressing down our films too much and felt we needed to raise the glam quotient– that’s what seems to be selling these days. Everyone wants to see good-looking people, wearing great clothes. Also I would say the look is relevant to my subject, because it is a rags to riches story. We could afford to be a little flashy. As for whether this is how I like my films to look, I think I’m still grappling to understand my own style. But seriously, I’m not too much into stylistics.

How did Jannat’s story happen?

I have been a huge cricket buff and was toying with the idea of bookies. That’s when the Bob Woolmer incident happened and it kind of gave a fresh lease of life to my story. The world cup, police, the mafia…had the perfect makings of a good plot.

I believe Jannat will see the return of Emraan Hashmi in his Murder avatar…The actor wasn’t liked when he played serious characters and we hear he’s back to doing what he’s best at…

Which is?..

You know…

Not once did Emraan tell me to add a kissing scene or anything. Nor do we have any lovemaking scenes. As a director I had complete creative liberty.

No, that’s not what I meant. I believe you were the one who asked him to do the kissing scenes…

Yes I did. We have a mature audience out there…If I need to show a relationship progressing, I do need to depict a certain physical proximity between my actors. But this is no Murder because if that were the case, I would have showed it in the promo. Murder’s promos made it clear that it would be a bold film. With Jannat, one instantly knows it’s about cricket and bookies. Coming to Emraan, it’s sad that people judge an actor not on his acting caliber but on the number of hits he gives. We’ve made a tailor-made role for him and it’s always easy that way because we aren’t straying too far from his real personality. Yes, we have made slightly roguish and the bad boy everyone likes to love –and that’s for the simple reason that Emraan is like that in real life. We haven’t done anything to deliberately spice-up his image.

A couple of years back, Emraan was considered hot property. Then he did several indifferent films and now, he desperately needs Jannat to do well. How skeptical are you about the film’s opening?

Honestly, I cannot say. The promos are looking fresh and the film has turned out well. Emraan made some bad decisions. Some of those films may have appeared good on paper but they didn’t turn out that way. Actually, Emraan is very good with his script selection, so it has to do something with the way those films were made. Also I feel, he needs to be more brave in his choice of films, especially when he works for outside banners. I mean, he’ll do a Gangster for Vishesh but when it comes to outside films, he goes the predictable way.

I believe you were looking at Esha Doel as your female lead in Jannat…

We weren’t looking at her, we had signed her! Casting Esha was part of our decision to start casting better women opposite Emraan. I think Esha has a lot of talent and has just been very unlucky. Unfortunately, her dates didn’t match and we took on Sonal (Chauhan). Of course, the good thing about Sonal was that she came without any baggage.

Marketing has started playing a huge role in the success of a film…what are the plans in this regard?

Jannat is not a very big film, so our publicity budget is limited. But we certainly don’t want to get drowned out and have tied up with agencies, which will give us some marketing muscle.