'Raaz' Completes 20 Years: Vikram Bhatt Says 'Everybody Thought I Was Making A Mistake'

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the release of 'Raaz' (2002), and director Vikram Bhatt recalls how "no one believed in the small film" when he filmed it.

According to a report by Hindustan Times, the director says, 바카라�Everybody thought that I was making a mistake. The horror films, which we watched before Raaz, took on the role of a B-grade movie, unfortunately. People thought we were making a similar film. There was a big producer who came to me and said, 바카라�Kya yaar, tu flop hero aur Ajnabee (2001) ki vamp ke saath picture bana raha hai!바카라�바카라�

Dino Morea and Bipasha Basu Singh Grover, the film's lead actors, were not the director's initial picks. Bhatt claims that it was initially offered to actor Anil Kapoor, who declined because he did not want to be a part of a horror film, and that actress Lisa Ray had filmed for a piece of it: 바카라�After working with Lisa in Kasoor (2001), she was the first choice for Raaz. But she had some personal issues because of which she couldn바카라�t do the film. We were left in a lurch after that as we didn바카라�t have a heroine. When Dino came in, he said, 바카라�Why don바카라�t you try out my girlfriend, Bipasha? She바카라�s lovely!바카라� But I hadn바카라�t heard her name.바카라�

He continues, 바카라�We met her and the first time we narrated the film to her, she fell off the sofa. That made me realise that she definitely is the heroine of Raaz. I thought that if in a narration, she can fall off a sofa, she바카라�s definitely the right fit for Sanjana.바카라�

Bhatt claims that 'Raaz' catapulted him to popularity and was a game-changer in his career when he says, 바카라�It put me on the road of making horror films and I바카라�m still making them. It helped me find my genre. I was always on the lookout for a film only I could make. In every filmmaker바카라�s life, there comes a film they find hard to beat. Raaz is that film for me. It바카라�s a badge of honour. It바카라�s still remembered. People still talk about the scenes and the songs. In a way, it바카라�s a bigger hit than Ghulam (1998).바카라�

He attributes the film's success to producer Mahesh Bhatt, music director team Nadeem-Shravan, and the cast, which includes Malini Sharma and Ashutosh Rana. The filmmaker recalls the day the horror film premiered in theatres, saying, 바카라�I was fast asleep when Bhatt sab called me. He said, 바카라�Teri taqdeer jag rahi hai aur tu so raha hai바카라�. He told me that the six o바카라�clock show in the morning was house full. I told him that there must have been a mistake (laughs). It opened fantastically. Elia Kazan (American filmmaker) said that the audiences are like hounds; they can smell a good film. We couldn바카라�t imagine that Raaz would be huge a big hit; all we knew that we were doing something right.바카라�