page_title: Gunday
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Gunday / Production / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: The cast of Gunday at the press conference in Kolkata.
context_page_description: Gunday is a 2014 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film written and directed by Ali Abbas Zafar and produced by Aditya Chopra. The film features Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Irrfan Khan in the lead roles. Set in 1971–1988 Calcutta, Gunday is a story about two best friends and outlaws, who fall in love with a cabaret dancer, which causes rivalry and misunderstandings between them.
  Zafar conceived the film as an amalgam of stories he had heard from his father as a child about the effects of war-caused immigration and the Mafia Raj's illegal marketing of coal. He wrote the film as a tale of the consequences of the struggle of two outlaws against the system, using his father's stories as a backdrop for the characters. Principal photography began in Mumbai in December 2012 before moving to Kolkata, where extensive filming was done. The soundtrack was produced by Sohail Sen and the lyrics were penned by Irshad Kamil. It was the last Yash Raj Film narrated to Yash Chopra.
  Gunday was released on 14 February 2014, receiving positive reviews and commercial success, with a box-office gross of ₹1.2 billion making it the 10th highest-grossing Bollywood release of 2014.
context_section_description: Gunday was announced in August 2012 by Yash Raj Films, with Ali Abbas Zafar directing a film about two 1970s criminals in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata). In a Reuters interview, Zafar said that the film was conceived because of his fascination with history. His father, a 1971 war veteran, told him stories about the war, its immigration and the coal mafia. His father told stories about the illegal coal trade in Calcutta, where trains carrying coal were robbed by unemployed youths. Since coal was a black-market commodity during the 1970s and 1980s, he used it as a plot device. The stories inspired him to create the film's backdrop around which he based his characters. Zafar decided to set the film in Calcutta, since he felt the story suited the city's political climate.
  Zafar said that films of that era, such as Deewaar (1975) and Kaala Patthar (1979), influenced his storyline. He believed that the films' portrayal of the conflict between right and wrong gave him an understanding of life as a child, which he used in the script. In an interview, Zafar said that the film depicted the consequences of the outlaws' struggle against the system: "If someone is deprived of basic rights, there will certain youth who will be disillusioned and go over to the dark side. In a way, the system creates its own enemy." Gunday was the last film narrated to Yash Chopra.
  Since most 1970s and 1980s films emphasized bromance, Zafar wanted to showcase friendship and said that he wanted to "catch that spirit" of friendship of "Jai-Veeru" from Sholay (1975); he called the film a "definite reference point", with Yaarana (1981), for portraying bromance. Zafar made the friendship between his characters integral to the plot, where the characters would do anything for each other: "The whole idea while making Gunday was to bring the right feel of friendship. The idea about friendship which used to be in the earlier times, especially in the heartland of India was something else."
caption: The cast of Gunday: Arjun Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ranveer Singh.
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