Aamir Khan was worried for Yash Chopra and Aditya Chopra when they told him about making the studio, doubted if it was even economically feasible – Times of India

The Romantics docu-series which is a tribute to the legacy of Yash Chopra revealed a lot of unknown facts about the filmmaker and the industry. In one of the episodes, Aamir Khan revealed that he was worried when Yash Chopra and Aditya Chopra discussed with him that they were setting up the country’s first studio, the Yash Raj Films in Mumbai.
Aamir, who has shared a great bond with the Chopras having worked in films like Fanaa and Dhoom 3 among others, said, “When Yashji and Adi first told me that they were making the studio, I was thinking, ‘Acha?’ I was worried for Yashji and Adi. I was like they are putting in so much money into making this dream of theirs but is it even economically feasible to run something like this? I don’t think even they knew whether they would make their money back!”

The docu-series reveals that it was Aditya Chopra’s wish that YRF should have a studio. Revealing why he was unfazed about building the studio, Adi said, “I’ll tell you why it didn’t bother me. It’s because for me, even if everything fails and we’re able to make this studio, which has my dad’s name on it, at the least what we’ve done is we’ve created a monument which symbolises what he did. I don’t think there’s any value to that. So, any price to pay for that is okay.”
The studio held its ground even when the western corporates entered the Hindi film business. “Obviously, after the liberalisation in the 90s, a lot of multinationals were coming in. I got a sense this is going to happen in the film industry as well and the studio model will probably come to India and if that happens, any production house, even as reputed as ours would eventually be working for the studios. Now my dad was this very Indian conservative man. So, he didn’t understand. He said you want to put up a studio? I said no, I want to do that as well but that’s just brick and mortar. I think we need to control our distribution touch-points and before the studios come in, I would like to become a studio so that they don’t come to buy us out, but they look at us as equals. I wanted to elevate the entire process of filmmaking. I wanted to elevate the entire industry,” Adi explained.

The Romantics has been directed by Oscar & Emmy-nominated filmmaker Smriti Mundhra, who returns after the phenomenal success of Indian Matchmaking and the Never Have I Ever franchise.