Did Ranbir Kapoor’s hairstyle lead to Bombay Velvet’s failure?

Anurag Kashyap recalls bizarre feedback

Bombay Velvet (2015) was one of Anurag Kashyap’s most ambitious films, and the filmmaker once again revisited its failure, revealing an absurd explanation that came out from post-release audience research. He said that the studio’s research team concluded that Ranbir Kapoor’s hairstyle was one of the reasons audiences stayed away from the film.

During a recent interview with Screen, the director opened up on the feedback he received after Bombay Velvet’s release. “The debacle of the film was such that when they did the research, the shocking thing was, people didn’t like Ranbir’s hair. They said that audiences got upset with Ranbir’s hair because he had curled it up,” he said. “It was a choice that we all made; we designed it like that. And when I heard this, I was like, that’s the most absurd reason I can hear. One can say, ‘Oh, the film didn’t work for me,’ but coming up and saying hair didn’t work, and because of that it didn’t get an opening, was absurd.”

The film was released in 2015 and was Kashyap’s first large-scale project after years of critically acclaimed independent films. Bombay Velvet was based on historian Gyan Prakash’s book Mumbai Fables and starred Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, and Karan Johar in the key roles. The neo-noir period drama also featured Kay Kay Menon, Manish Chaudhary, Vivaan Shah, and Vicky Kaushal in supporting roles. (Agencies)

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