Director Sreenu Vaitla’s career was on a downward spiral with hattrick duds. However, failures don’t seem to deter his spirits but fired the zeal in him to prepare vigorously to consolidate his position in the industry. He says that he has penned the script of his upcoming film Amar Akbar Anthony (AAA) with an introspective approach keeping his past mistakes in mind.
“I introspect, analyse and try to understand my merits and demerits. I took eight months gap after Mister, roped in all new people and written the script of AAA to the last detail before narrating it to Ravi Teja. I gave my everything to make AAA an exciting project and I’m confident of hitting the right note this time around,” says Vaitla.
The director insists that AAA is a tailor-made script for Ravi Teja. “Ravi Teja is a close friend of mine and has always been my trouble-shooter. He came to my rescue on two occasions when I was low on confidence and was delivering flops. His role in this film was written keeping him on the mind. The moment he listened to the story, he instantly gave his nod. I have tapped his full potential and it’s going to be a feast to see him in action,” shares the Bruce Lee director.
Vaitla says he has taken special care for the film. “People expect certain kind of entertainment from my films and it’s not easy to blend comedy into a story that is completely different from what I’ve done so far. It’s a script that had me integrating every commercial aspect of filmmaking,” explains the director.
Ask him how Ileana came on board? He says, “After completing the script work, I thought Ileana would be apt to play the female lead’s part. But my producers and several others said she has moved away from Telugu cinema and we had another actor as part of the film. But at the last minute, she had to back out of the project due to some reasons and then, we approached Ileana, who instantly agreed to work in the film.”
About the title, Vaitla elaborates, “As the film shows Ravi Teja as in three different characters, we have chosen AAA out of his liking for Amitabh Bachchan and as expected, it has received a positive feedback from everyone.”
On his Bollywood plans, the director says, “I have been longing to direct a Hindi film for a while now. After Dhee, Shatrughan Sinha came forward with a lucrative offer and gave the token advance, but things never worked out. I have retained the remake rights of AAA with me and if the film turns out to be successful, I will remake it in Hindi.”