The reclusive head of the iconic Yash Raj Films, Aditya Chopra, has recorded his first on-camera interview for The Romantics, a Netflix docu-series celebrating legendary film-maker Yash Chopra, YRF’s legacy and its impact on Indian pop culture for the last 50 years! The last time he gave an interview was for a print magazine in 1995! As superstar Hrithik Roshan says in the trailer, Aditya Chopra is regarded as the brain who shaped ‘the contours of the industry’ and hearing him share insights about YRF is a huge highlight for the film fraternity, cinephiles & Hindi cinema audience at large.
Netflix, one of the world’s leading entertainment services, will showcase the four-part docu-series featuring 35 personalities, including the mega-stars who have closely worked with YRF over the years. They will collectively dive into the history of Hindi cinema through the lens of YRF’s impact in making the industry and its leading stars a household name globally through its path-breaking and generation-defining films.
The trailer of The Romantics also revealed a stark fact wherein a number of iconic cinematic names hate the word ‘Bollywood’ which has been casually used for decades to describe the Hindi film industry. Bollywood, a portmanteau of Bombay (former name of Mumbai) and Hollywood was originally coined by the West to describe Hindi cinema. Over time Bollywood has grown to become a popular term today.
The docu-series, through the words of the mega-stars on Hindi cinema, will address the identity of the Hindi film industry in the West and how these celebrities feel the term ‘Bollywood’ is not inclusive to other film industries of India and, thus, they despise it.
The Romantics will release on February 14, 2023, as a tribute to Yash Chopra, who is regarded as the ‘Father of Romance’ in India because of his iconic romantic films like Silsila, Lamhe, Kabhi Kabhie, Veer-Zaara, Dil To Pagal Hai, Chandni, Jab Tak Hai Jaan, etc. The docu-series has been directed by Smriti Mundhra, who returns to Netflix after the phenomenal success of Indian Matchmaking and the Never Have I Ever franchises.