Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor’s Stree completed 6 years today. As the horror-comedy celebrated its anniversary, its sequel is a Tsunami at the box office. Directed by Amar Kaushik and written by Raj & DK, the film was a blockbuster.
Today, on the occasion of Stree’s 6th anniversary, writer duo and producers Raj & DK recalled how the film was conceptualised after the failure of Sidharth Malhotra’s A Gentleman. In an elaborate note on X, Raj Nidimoru reminisced about penning down the words, ‘O Stree, Kal Aana’ remembering his childhood.
A Gentleman's failure led to Stree
“26th August 2017, I watched the rain lashing outside my window. I could see our film, A Gentleman, that released yesterday, wash away… literally. We knew what was coming! Two back-to-back studio films failed… Typically, this type of situation means the end of a filmmaking career. Later that evening with a heavy heart, I walked out in foot deep water to a coffeeshop with my laptop. Took a long hard look at where DK & I started, what we set out to do, and where we were drifting to. We wanted to make original films, unique films, not the packaged kind. We wanted to push genres. We wanted to make each film different from the other. So I typed out on a blank page, “O Stree, Kal Aana!,” he shared.
6 Years Of Stree… A Trip Down Memory Lane26th August 2017I watched the rain lashing outside my window. I could see our film, A Gentleman, that released yesterday, wash away… literally.We knew what was coming! Two back-to-back studio films failed… Typically, this type of… pic.twitter.com/jb3dTzkTC8
— Raj & DK (@rajndk) August 31, 2024
ALSO READ: Shakti Kapoor On Shraddha Kapoor's Stree 2: 'I'm A Proud Father' – Exclusive
Raj added, “Every other wall in my hometown Tirupati, covered with the scribbling, “O Stree, repu raa..” Nobody knew what the story behind that was. All they knew was a strange urban legend that a scary stree will come into your house if you don’t write this. Why? How? What does she want? No one knew. And I thought, what if she can’t read Telugu? Why is she getting fooled by a silly trick to come tomorrow, again and again? What if she still didn’t care and wanted to come inside? I had let these crazy/silly ideas float in my head for years. Then as I was discussing with DK, it hit us that this can’t just be a silly comedy or a silly horror film. It can be so much more. Thus came the idea of gender reversal—what if men were the ones afraid to go out late at night? What if men had to go through what innumerable women have to deal with every day?”
He further recalled, “Based on the times when as a kid I couldn’t walk alone at night and had to chant Hanuman Chalisa because someone might ‘call my name’ from behind. Many characters and incidents from school days made it into the film: Vicky, Jana, Narendra, Rudra bookstore, Shankar Shastri, ‘Friendship’, tailor-shop, even the streets with fort walls (Chandragiri) near my hometown we found in Chanderi. DK & I also realised firsthand how a story from Telugu small town can easily make sense in a small town in Madhya Pradesh. So we dug deep, to dig ourselves out of the hole we were in. We went into hyperdrive and wrote the story every day and every night. And we finished the script in 3 weeks!”
Stree's success
Raj then mentioned how Stree was the fastest film they made on a small budget. The note read, “A crew ready to buy into this silly story was put together. A cast was cajoled into doing this film despite it being nonconforming. A film started getting shot despite there being no precedent for this kind. A super friendly fun shoot happened in the tiniest of the towns, Chanderi, where we stayed in guesthouses and schools, shot all over the town and played Mafia at nights. Many lasting bonds were formed. And a film was made at the smallest budget possible and dared to go into theatres without a formula, and not following the norms. Edits were changed, interval points were invented… But the original core story only got stronger at every step. It was the fastest film we ever made. I guess that is what happens when you have a point to prove, to yourself. On the cusp of the release, we knew something magical was going to happen. And it happened! Aug 31, 2018. A ridiculous story, defying all odds, became a phenomenon.”
Raj ended the note saying, “I guess every failure is an opportunity to grow. And every heartbreak is a chance to cleanse and recreate. Thank you, wholeheartedly, for everyone who backed us, believed in us and loved our stories!”
Stree also starred Abhishek Banerjee, Aparshakti Khurana and Pankaj Tripathi. Raj & DK were not associated with the sequel as Niren Bhatt stepped in as the writer.