‘Vicky Vidya Ka Oh Wala Video’ Not Inspired From Hollywood Movie ‘Sex Tape’: Director Raj Shandilya

Director Raj Shandilya says his upcoming film “Vicky Vidya Ka Oh Wala Video”, starring Rajkummar Rao and Tripti Dimri, has no relation to Hollywood film “Sex Tape”.

The filmmaker, best known for the “Dream Girl” franchise headlined by Ayushmann Khurrana, says he hasn’t even seen the 2014 film starring Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz.

Titled “Vicky Vidya…” follows a married couple on a frantic search for a CD containing a video of their wedding night, while “Sex Tape” revolves around a married couple who make a sex tape to spice up their relationship only to wake up the next day. I woke up in the morning and saw that it was gone.

Shandilya says that she came to know that there is a film called “Sex Tape” after the trailer launch of “Vicky Vidya…” which is set in the 1990s.

“Someone asked me on Twitter, ‘Is this film like a ‘sex tape’?” I thought, ‘There’s no sex in our film’. I was told by one of our writers that their video of that film went viral on the internet. The video of our film is a couple. did and they lost the CD due to their negligence.

“The character and the story are different. Our film has nothing to do with ‘Sex Tape’. I haven’t even seen ‘Sex Tape’. I am not inspired by it, rather I am inspired by life and people around me,” the director said in an interview here. told PTI.

He is already working on the sequel to “Viki Vidya…”, which will revolve around the early days of the Internet

“Where this film ends, we’ve got a sequel, which will be set 10-15 years later, when the Internet has emerged. We wrote the story. We will shoot this film after I do another film,” he added.

The inspiration for “Vicky Vidya…” came from co-writer Yusuf Ali Khan and work on the script resumed in 2018, Shandilya said.

Prior commitments and the pandemic delayed the film’s development.

The filmmaker said he initially planned to do “Vicky Vidya…” before “Dream Girl 2”, which released last year.

Shandilya said she wants to work with “Stri 2” star Rao “for a long time”.

“However, things happen, whenever they are meant to. I wanted to cast Rajkumar because I needed a middle-class boy from a small town. I felt he was perfectly suited in terms of his body language and style.”

Choosing Dimri to play the role of Vidya arose out of the need for a new ensemble.

“For the character of Vidya, we needed someone who had not worked with Rajkumar. He has starred in ‘Stree’ with Shraddha Kapoor, ‘Ruhi’ with Janhvi Kapoor and ‘Mr. and Mrs. Mahi’. We needed a new pair and that’s when we thought of Tripti. He is a good actor. We signed him before the release of ‘Pushu’,” he said.

The director, who started out as a writer on the TV show “Comedy Circus”, said he is careful while writing dialogues.

“When I write, I make sure we don’t talk about religion. You never know what things can hurt people. For example, if someone in our country loves China, how would you write this dialogue in your film, ‘That China has attacked us 50 times’. It’s important to take comedy lightly and not take it seriously,” says Shandilya, whose dialogue writing credits include films like “Welcome Back” and “Jabria Jodi”.

But why did “Vicky Vidya…” set in the 90s? The filmmaker said he was driven by a desire to capture the essence of the CD era and its impact on society at the time.

“Back then, men sported long hair and that’s why our actors look like that in the film. It’s not that we were inspired by Sanjay Dutt or Amitabh Bachchan. The reason we wanted to show the 90s era was because at that time, CDs were ingrained.” Shandilya also revealed her plans for future projects, talking about collaborations with Khurana, Rao, Karthik Aaryan and Varun Dhawan.

“We will make ‘Dream Girl 3’ but it is not going to be my next directorial venture. I have already written around 10 scripts. I will direct my next film in March or April, its script is ready.

“I have written more stories and any one of them can suit Ayushmann, Rajkummar, Karthik and Varun. All four of them showed interest in these ideas. These are stories ranging from hardcore comedy, satire, black comedy to political drama,” he said.

‘Vicky Vidya…’ is slated to release on October 11.