Raj how did your first project materialize?
It took us almost four or five years to get that film going because we were new to Mumbai. It was the first time we had landed in the city, and we didn’t know anyone. All we knew was that we could write a script. So, we wrote 99, Shor in the City, and Go Goa Gone, I think. As engineers aspiring to be filmmakers, we thought that if we wrote three scripts, at least one of them might get made. More scripts meant better odds. 99 was our first one. But again, we didn’t know anyone.
16 Years of 99: Raj Nidimoru on making 99 without a safety net; says, “We didn’t know the rules”
How did you convince a producer to back 99?
Just making contacts, approaching any actor or producer—it was all taking forever. And we had zero clue how to go about it. Plus, we looked like we were from another world. We didn’t look like we belonged in Mumbai. People didn’t know who we were. But they did say the script was fun, fresh, and something they hadn’t read before.
So, 99 had no reference point?
Right. That kind of proved to be tough and good at the same time because there was no precedent. We couldn’t say, “It’s like that film.” That made it harder. The only person we knew was Anupam Mittal, the CEO of Shaadi.com. He was a friend before we made the film. One day he said, “I’ll produce a film,” and that’s how it started.
Was it tough getting that impressive cast without any experience in feature filmmaking?
Absolutely. We had no connections and no way to prove we were filmmakers. So we decided to make a short film based on Shor in the City. We had a full script, but we picked one part of it and shot it over a weekend. That short film came out really well. It became our calling card. It went to a bunch of festivals, and we started showing it around in Bombay to see who would bite. Based on that, we began casting. And before we knew it, we had a really cool ensemble: Kunal Khemu, Vinod Khanna, Boman Irani, and Cyrus Broacha—who was doing a feature film for the first time, I think. It was really fun.
Was it tough putting 99 out there?
The release was another big pain point. We had no money for marketing. I don’t think we even had newspaper ads. Just ten hoardings in the city—that was it. No TV spots, no radio promotions. It just opened… and sat there.
The opening must have crushed you and DK.
We thought it had sunk on Day 1 because nobody knew about it. It opened just about okay. We felt low on Friday and gave up. But by Sunday, things turned around. We visited packed theatres, and it was a relief. Word of mouth was strong, and the film ended up running for several weeks. We experienced all kinds of emotions in that one release.
So, a happy ending?
Yeah, in the end, it was a happy one in terms of how the film ran. It had a great afterlife too. People still fondly remember it. Every time the anniversary of 99 comes around, we get sweet messages. The trailer had a great line: “The difference between 99 and 100 is one. Just one—but it’s a big one.” That really sums it up. So much happened on that set, and we learned a lot. We grew as a team.
You had quite a team.
Yes, DK, Sita Menon, and I came together. And we’ve remained a team since. Filming was great fun. 99 is the only film we shot on Super 35 film stock. Even though digital was already mainstream, we wanted to shoot on film—because we felt it might be our last chance. It was so cool. We didn’t know the “rules” of filmmaking. We just made what we wanted to make.
You really carved your own space with that film.
We realized there wasn’t really a crime comedy in Hindi cinema back then. So we said, let’s do something that’s not out there. Hence, 99. It was kind of a historical fiction in a weird way. We created a backstory that linked it to the real-life betting and match-fixing scandal. It was an original idea. A lot of fun to make.
It couldn’t have been easy cracking such a sensitive idea. Like walking on grass?
Yes, it took a long time to crack the script. We were basically writing our first real Hindi feature film, and we had to figure out structure, climax, all of it. It was very satisfying. Interestingly, while we were working on 99, we started jumping between scripts—we don’t know why, but it turned out well for us. So, 99, Shor in the City, and Go Goa Gone were all being developed at the same time, in various stages.
More Pages: 99 Box Office Collection , 99 Movie Review
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