PHOONK has taken a huge opening at the box office. With near 100% collections all over and continuing to go strong show after show, the film has given Ram Gopal Varma yet another success this year after SARKAR RAJ. Ramu talks:

"Any filmmaker primarily wants to make a film which people will acclaim. The collections are more the Producers and Distributors concern. But the collections also indicate how many people actually saw the film. Does one feel that the film has served the purpose because a few individuals like the Print & Television critics say it is good or is how many tickets audience bought? Without batting an eyelid even the most award savvy Director would say that it is the audience buying tickets which is important because it will at the end of the day it will be his primary objective to see that as many people as possible watches his work.

In the year Satya released “Godmother” got the National Award and Satya was completely ignored. Godmother ran for 2 weeks and Satya ran for 25 weeks in the same theatre and 10 year later Satya is remembered as a cult-film and the jury members of the National Award committee would have forgotten both Godmother and its Director; and worse they would not have been even bothered to follow that Director’s career.

I always knew that it is the audiences not the critic’s reviews which made Satya work so tremendous. They gave as much or better reviews for Maqbool, Khamosh Pani, etc and we all know their box-office fate. A prominent critic mentioned in his review when Raat released that time, that it is an unintended comedy. Apart from him most reviews too trashed it. 15 years later many critics of present times term it as a cult-classic. That’s not because Raat was ahead of times but the critics of today were just audience at that time and hence unbiased.

Anyway to cut a long story short, not to undermine “Mumbai Meri Jaan” or its maker who received raving reviews compared to “Phoonk”, I just would like him to answer sincerely from his heart whether he himself would have preferred glowing reviews and opinions from critics or the collections of “Phoonk”?"