LONE WARRIOR

Kartik Aaryan on why, in an industry that only watches out for its own, he has to blow his own trumpet.

- ANKUR PATHAK

IN THE WEEKS leading up to the release of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, Kartik Aaryan and the film's team made several efforts to avoid a clash with Rohit Shetty's tent-pole cop drama Singham Again. It was obvious that both films would eat into each other at the box office, and the makers of the horror-comedy had announced their release date first. “We planned it as a Diwali entertainer much before they did,” Aaryan says, reclining on a plush couch by the floor-to-ceiling windows of his Juhu penthouse, the golden hues of the winter sun casting long shadows across the room.

“We genuinely requested them to push it. But they had their own internal issues and couldn't. Unfortunately then, both films were released on the same day. We were up against a huge, giant multi-starrer, and nobody—not even those of us who worked on the film—expected it to do this well,” he says. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 has turned out to be one of the biggest hits of the year, and its success was a much-needed fillip for an industry that has faced a turbulent, challenging 2024. Its performance has also cemented Aaryan's place as a leading man.