Aditya Sarpotdar: Munjya comes from the world of ET, Stranger Things and Harry Potter- Exclusive

Horror-comedy Munjya starring Abhay Verma, Monsa Singh and Sharvari, which is based on a Maharashtrian folklore took the box office by surprise, the film is all geared to cross 100 crore mark in the next few days. ETimes spoke to the captain of the ship, Aditya Sarpotdar, and he opened up on the journey of the film and how its box office result took everyone by surprise.


That is a good compliment and we were aiming for people to get that post-film experience, that you carry the film home. Be it comedy, horror or fantasy, taking the experience back home is ultimate. In fact when I go to theaters and meet people and try to understand what is getting us such footfalls.

I believe the fact that people like to watch different films. And I believe it because I come from Marathi cinema, where you always make different films. I believe the fact that when a Kantara or Tumbbad gets this much attention, it is something that is very connected to your roots and your folklore. People are always interested and excited about it. But eventually people have to come to the halls to see it.
Also the timing of a film decides its fate. Munjya was planned for a later date, with a longer promotion campaign but we realized that there could not be a better date than 7th of June. Because of two reasons, I believe that this is a film meant for kids and families. And I believe that the film purely comes from the world of ET, Stranger Things and Harry Potter. I did believe that genre lends itself to families and kids, purely because Munja also was pitched as a character that was not only horror, but also fun. And I thought that we should hit that audience when they are all coming back home from their holidays, waiting for schools to start and have nothing to look out for. Also the World Cup was going to start and the IPL was over, so were the elections and the word of mouth picked up the film. We were tracking numbers for Munjya and released that the day 1 collection was what the industry had predicted for the entire weekend.
So Kakuda was shot over 2021-2022 and we completed the film by the end of 2022, and last year we were waiting for the film to release and find a home. As the film from day 1 was made for OTT, it was made when the pandemic was on and back then films were only being made for OTT. Now with the response that Munjya has received, Zee is confident of Kakuda and feels this is the right time for its release. Kakuda is a spooky horror film, it is a very odd genre which people, I don't think, very easily understand. So, we have joked about horror comedies and that is the flavor of Kakuda. I was hoping Kakuda would be released after Munja because I wanted Munja to be my first horror comedy. As once you create a vibe of horror comedies then you can make jokes on them. So the next day after Munja released, I started working on Kakuda. The film was complete but not entirely ready for an output.