Rohit Shetty's directorial, Cirkus, starring Ranveer Singh, released in 2022, was declared a major flop, despite the success and acclaim of his other comedy films. Recently, the film’s writer, Yunus Sajawal, revealed that Shetty made Cirkus majorly to support his crew members financially during the COVID-19 lockdown, as he was deeply concerned for their well-being.
In an interview with Digital Commentary, the writer said, "When the lockdown kept extending and everyone realised that this was going to happen for long, the release of Sooryavanshi had to be paused instead of just postponing it again and again. Rohit sir wanted to have a Zoom meeting at first. In April, he had already called the production to book Mehboob Studio for September. He wanted to make an indoor film," he said.
Yunus further stated, "He said something really nice, ‘Main do saal kaam nahi karunga toh chal jaayega. Mere unit waalon ka ghar kaise chalega. Because, no one was working due to COVID and were only exhausting their savings,"
He revealed that Rohit wanted to make a studio-based film so that the unit’s family and house could keep running smoothly despite the lockdown.
The writer said that Rohit primarily hired junior artists of Cirkus for a few months so they could earn money. Although the director would never openly admit it, he took the film's failure upon himself.
Yunus shared that Rohit would pay all 500 members of the unit, even though they worked in rotations with only 100 people allowed at once due to pandemic restrictions. "Every junior artist went through the checkups and vaccinations and they all were hired for four months. Even if there won’t be any shooting, they would be paid," he said.
Cirkus starred Varun Sharma, Pooja Hegde, Jacqueline Fernandez, Johny Lever, Sanjay Mishra, among others. Deepika Padukone made a special appearance in the song Current Laga Re.
