‘A two-hour film wouldn’t have done justice to The Family Man’
Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK have always believed in adding quirk to every project they take up, the 2017 action comedy A Gentleman and last year’s runaway hit Stree being cases in point. And this year, they have got a winner in the form of their debut web series, The Family Man with Manoj Bajpayee.
The series has received acclaim from both viewers and critics, and speculations have steadily gained ground that the second season is on its way. They confirm, “It has to be made. There is a lot of excitement for it. We have a story. Yes, it will be made.”
With the big question out of the way, we proceed to ask them the reactions they have been receiving for it. They say, “One of the best compliments was someone saying they watched it three times back to back. We thought, ‘Why would you do that?’ The person said he couldn’t believe that so much was there in a series... so many layers to it. They were fascinated.’ The show revolves around Manoj’s character, who is hiding the fact that he is an on-ground secret agent, from his family.
“Another funny one,” the duo continues, “Was one person writing on social media, ‘I know I am late, but I am 15 minutes into the first episode, it’s really good’, and by the time I was reading some 12 hours later, he had posted about two hours back, ‘Just finished the series!’”
The duo has been directing films for many years now, their first commercial outing being the 2009 crime comedy 99. Thereon, they went on to direct Shor in the City (2011), Go Goa Gone (2013) and Happy Ending (2014). What made them try their hand at the web space? “We wanted to diversify a bit because we realised we were only making one film every two years. In those times, we realised we have written a lot, and the feeling before Stree was that we were not being able to get our stories out. The average time was too long,” they share.
The concept for The Family Man had been ready for quite a few years, they share. “We were waiting for a good platform. We wanted to get on the bigger ones. We had the concept of it, the character, theme and idea, but we held on to it for a couple of years to make sure we were doing it at the right time with the right people. We knew a two-hour film won’t do justice to it,” the duo concludes.