Sriram Raghavan attended the screening of the Flemish noir film Night Creatures on the third and final day of the Red Lorry Film Festival 2026 in Mumbai. The film is inspired by the same book that also served as the basis for Sriram’s acclaimed 2024 film Merry Christmas. At the event, Sriram spoke about the film and a lot more.
Sriram Raghavan raised laughs as he revealed, “Ramesh Taurani of Tips was the producer of Merry Christmas along with Matchbox Pictures. I told Mr Taurani, ‘I am going to make a 90-minute film and it’ll have no interval’. He replied, ‘It’ll be difficult to do so without an interval. Make it a 100-minute film’. I replied, ‘I’ll make it 80 minutes then, but I don’t want an interval because the story has to go in a flow’. He said, ‘Ok. We’ll see’. Then, when I began writing, I realized that the film’s run time was exceeding 2 hours. This made him very happy!”
At another point, he explained more on this aspect, “When I began writing Merry Christmas, it was a 90-minute no-interval thriller. It was very fast-paced. But when I started writing it, I realized that it would be more fun if I stuck to the characters. That’s how it became a different film. So, it all happened during the writing process. It’s not like we began shooting and mid-way, we made a switch.”
During the Q-and-A round, Sriram Raghavan was asked whether AI is a boon or a bane for scriptwriters and filmmakers. The filmmaker again tickled the funny bone as remarked, “Just today, my co-writer told me, ‘ChatGPT is giving me a couple of good options for Badlapur 2’! So, I guess some things will be useful and some things won’t be useful.”
He also said, “I don’t know about this whole thing of going to AI and asking if a film would work at the box office. My scripts are given to people and they have asked whether it would work or not. I don’t know how they come to a conclusion. I guess there are a lot of people who have to justify their job!”
Despite critical acclaim, a few of his films didn’t work, including Ikkis (2026). Sriram Raghavan stated, “When your film doesn’t work, you do feel bad. But then, you think of so many great filmmakers whose great films didn’t work. Like what did Raj Kapoor feel after Mera Naam Joker (1970) tanked on the second day? I remember I was a kid and my parents had taken us to watch the film. The theatre was so empty that me and my brother were playing catching the ball in the hall!”
More Pages: Merry Christmas Box Office Collection , Merry Christmas Movie Review
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