- Devdas led to the postponement of hundreds of weddings in Mumbai.
- The sheer scale of the production required an enormous power supply.
- The impact was so significant that many weddings were postponed.
A film production so massive that it disrupted an entire industry sounds unbelievable, but that’s exactly what happened over two decades ago when Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas inadvertently led to the postponement of hundreds of weddings in Mumbai.
The 2002 magnum opus, based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel, starred Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, and Madhuri Dixit, and was known for its grand production scale.
Recently, Devdas cinematographer Binod Pradhan reflected on the film’s extravagant set design in a conversation with Friday Talkies. He described the breathtaking set of Chandramukhi’s kotha, which stretched nearly a kilometer in length.
“My entourage of assistants, we went to see how the set was being constructed, and we were shocked. We were wondering how to light it. I took a round of the set from the lakeside and told my assistant to put a 100-watt bulb at the end. That’s how we started lighting the set,” Pradhan recalled.
The sheer scale of the production required an enormous power supply, monopolizing generators across Mumbai. “They say that I used all the available generators in Mumbai for that set,” he revealed.
The impact was so significant that many weddings were postponed. “It was such a big area that we had to use so many generators. They used to say Binod ji caused so many weddings to be cancelled because there were no generators to be used in the weddings,” Pradhan added.
Made on a budget of ₹50 crore, Devdas was the most expensive Indian film at the time. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 before its global release in July, ultimately earning ₹168 crore worldwide and cementing its place as a cinematic spectacle.
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