The Indian film company recreates the romantic drama of 2013, with alternative artificial intelligence ending without the involvement of the director, and the first example of a global cinema ending without the involvement of the director.
Raanjhanaa, a Hindi film about the fateful romance between Hindu men and Muslim women, will return to cinemas on August 1 under the Tamil title Ambikapathy. The tragic ending of the film's original is replaced by something “happy.”
Pradeep Dwivedi, CEO of Eros Media Group, defended the decision, saying the innovation was part of the company's long-term creative and commercial vision. He said the change was an “exploratory baby step,” confirming that Eros has “significantly evaluated” a library of over 3,000 releases for similar AI treatments.
“If technology can do something for us and we can do something good with it, why?” he said. “There must be a symbiotic understanding of what technology allows, what creative processes can drive, and what audiences accept.”
The release attracted strong criticism from the film's director Anand L. Rai.
“This is the future we are headed for, and it is heartbreaking that the intentions and the author are disposable,” Rai told the Press Trust in India. “What I can do is separate myself from such a reckless, dystopian experiment.”
He said his team had contacted the Indian Film and Television Directors Association to explore legal options. Neither he nor the guild responded to the Guardian's request for comment at the time of publication.
The film stars Tamil actor Dhanush and Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor as a cross-starring interfaith couple.
The Eros catalogue includes Indian classics such as Shorei, Mother India, Omushantiom and Bajira Omastani. Eros Now, a streaming service, hosts over 11,000 digital titles.
Dwivedi said Ambikapathy was produced entirely in-house with human directors and presented as an optional alternative rather than an alternative to the original film. Eros refused to see if Eros would display a similar disclaimer in the film itself, but described the poster for the re-release as AI-driven.
Dwivedi said the director's criticism was “emotional” and omitted the relevant legal context. He pointed to the ongoing corporate dispute between Eros and Color Yellow Productions, studios co-founded by RAI.
In an email to the Guardian, Harini Lakshminarayan, Chief Operating Officer of Color Yellow, said the partnership with Eros ended “sometimes ago” due to operational challenges. “It's deeply contradictory to call this a “respectful creative reinterpretation” while excluding the very people who made the film over a decade ago,” she writes. She said the incident highlighted the “urgent need for fair and transparent protocols” especially regarding the use of AI using archival materials. “We send out a clear and very annoying message that if a completed film can be changed and re-released without the director's knowledge, the voice of the filmmaker is essential.”
Film critic Sutyarita Tyagi says, “Most directors in India don't even own the rights to the film.” Examples such as VasanBala's Peddlers have not yet been published since it acquired Indian distribution rights in 2012.
The release also raised questions about how the film's new “happy ending” reinterprets the inter-fiction story, a sensitive topic in India's political and cultural landscape. “These films are because these are people who are trying to ignore social norms,” Tiagi said. “I'm scared to decide what a 'happy ending' will look like in 13 years now. ”
Ambikapathy will be opening before its release date in November, starring Tere Ishk Mein, Rai's latest feature, starring Dhanush. Rai previously described the new film as “from the world of Raanjhanaa,” but it is not a sequel. Eros, who holds Raanjhanaa's rights, has denied the relationship between the two projects.
Re-releases occur amid the growth of experiments in AI across the global film industry. In Hollywood, AI has been used for audio cloning, dubbing and visual effects, including brutal accent enhancements and simulating the voice of 2021 documentary Roadrunner Anthony Brudyne. Concerns about the use of AI-generated scripts and actor portraits were a key issue in the 2023 writers and actors strike.
