Yash Raj Films and Akshay Kumar came together for one-of-a-kind magnum opus that revealed the story of a warrior king, Samrat Prithviraj. While politicians and even the Karni Sena gave a green signal to the film, it did not manage to rake in much success at the box office. The film also marked the debut of former beauty queen Manushi Chhillar. However, despite the strong cast and intense marketing campaign, the film was declared a failure at the box office.
Speaking to Navbharat Times, director of the film Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi mentioned that he is still unsure as to why Samrat Prithviraj suffered this fate. He said, “YRF presented this story at a huge scale. But people had a problem. It’s still unclear to me what problem they had. The writers did an honest job about following the historical facts. We are well aware about our storytelling responsibilities.”
Readers would be aware that the film features Akshay Kumar in the titular role and Manushi Chhillar as his wife Sanyogita. It was being said some audiences felt that there was a massive age gap between the leads, which was almost 30 years. Mentioning that during his recent chat with the daily, “If you take iconic TV shows of India, the age of the main lead did not match with the character he played. Lord Krishna was dusky in complexion but the actors who played him were fair and young. Prithviraj Kapoor played Akbar but he wasn’t like him. Every filmmaker looks at Akshay as per his own vision. If you don’t like the film or character, that’s your right. But to unleash a movement for it is unfair.”
Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi also addressed the issue of how many historians had rejected his film because they felt the film did not represent the historic facts well. In conclusion, Dwivedi maintained that a historical film should be discussed outside the cinema halls and that it should not be dragged into politics and religion.
Besides Akshay and Manushi, Samrat Prithviraj also featured Sonu Sood and Sanjay Dutt in pivotal roles. The film released on June 4, 2022.
