Ali Abbas Zafar: Made it for OTT so that we don’t have censorship issues

Shahid Kapoor

Big-screen entertainers, from Sultan (2016) to Tiger Zinda Hai (2017), have been Ali Abbas Zafar's forte. But his language of cinema changed, as he moved to digital entertainment with Tandav (2021) and Jogi (2022). With the upcoming Bloody Daddy, the director brings his signature larger-than-life treatment to streaming platforms. Zafar says, "From the beginning, it was a conscious decision to make this film for an OTT platform, so that we don't have to go through any censorship issues later. The film's visual language is a little graphic. We were clear that we wanted to make the action look raw and real."

At the centre of the actioner - adapted from the French film, Sleepless Night [2011] - is Shahid Kapoor playing a Narcotics Control Bureau officer, who has to return a seized bag of drugs in exchange for his abducted son. The JioCinema offering has fulfilled the actor-director duo's long-standing wish to team up. "We've known each other from the time I was an assistant director on Badmaash Company (2010). After I became a director, I often told him that the day I find a good story for him, I'll bring it to him." Kapoor was the first name that came to his mind for the actioner. "Shahid liked the idea. When I wrote the script and went to him after three months, he could see himself clearly as Sumair."

Ali Abbas Zafar

The director admits that his leading man and he have different sensibilities in cinema. Bloody Daddy then is the marriage of the two schools of thought. "Shahid likes to do credible films, and I come from a mainstream background. So, we had to find a common ground, on paper and on set. Sometimes, before a scene, he'd tell me that it's [over the top]. I'd then tell him, ‘What I'm doing with you is only 50 per cent of what I would've done with Salman Khan.' Sometimes, we would do things his way. It was a good marriage of creative minds."

Action film franchises are common. Zafar agrees that the movie - also starring Ronit Roy, Sanjay Kapoor and Diana Penty - can lend itself to a franchise. "The film is designed in a way that leaves the narrative open-ended. Tomorrow, if you [want to make] a sequel, it can easily be done. But it all depends on the love that Bloody Daddy gets."