Casting

Earlier reports had suggested that Siddharth Anand, who had made Salaam Namaste, Ta Ra Rum Pum, Bachna Ae Haseeno and Anjaana Anjaani in the past, planned to make his next film with Shahid Kapoor, but Kapoor wanted to avoid comparisons with Tom Cruise and did not have availability of his dates for the film, as he had signed onto Haider. Bipasha Basu rumouredly was also on-board, but she eventually turned down the film. Soon news came that Anand was planning a film with Hrithik Roshan. In September 2012, Roshan was confirmed to play the lead role, with Katrina Kaif playing the female lead in the film.^[6][7] Roshan started working on the film immediately after wrapping up Krrish 3, and charged a ₹300 million fee for his performance in the film, which until then was the most any actor in Bollywood had charged up front.^[8] The film was soon revealed to be the official Bollywood remake of Knight and Day, starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

Makeup

In June 2014, the Bollywood group known as the Cine Costume Make-Up Artist & Hair Dressers' Association (CCMAA) authorized an official protest on the movie set of Bang Bang! in protest of foreign make-up artist Daniel Bauer working on the movie for its lead actress, Katrina Kaif. The CCMAA and 15 of its members protested on the movie set as Daniel Bauer was not registered with the Union, despite the Union banning foreign artists working in Bollywood. The issue was resolved with the CCMAA granting Daniel Bauer full membership.^[9]

Filming

In December 2012, it was confirmed that the official remake of Knight and Day would be titled Bang Bang.^[10] In March 2013, the film's Kashmir schedule was cancelled.^[11] Shooting for the film began on 1 May 2013, with the film scheduled for release on 1 May 2014.^[12] Unique water action sequences were shot in Thailand and Greece. In an interview with Mumbai Mirror, Roshan spoke about the action sequences in the film stating, "I have pushed myself to the extreme for this stunt. This sequence called for mental and physical tenacity. The rush that I experienced while training and executing the sequence was out of the world. I was hooked to a sea plane while I did the stunt. I had trained non-stop to even attempt the sequence". Roshan refused to use any body double to perform the stunts.^[13]

Talking about another water action sequences, the film's director Siddharth Anand revealed, "We can control the action we shoot on land, but while shooting at sea, you're at the mercy of the tide. Three days before the shoot, Hrithik started practicing the stunts for five-six hours daily. It took us eight days to shoot the sequences in water. For another water action sequence, Hrithik trained for four days, before the shooting. He learnt to jetski with a speed boat pulling him along first. Then, an antiquated plane was brought in with an experienced pilot at the controls, so that it could be slowed down and speeded up at will."^[14][15][16]

In July 2013, one of the songs of the film, "Meherbaan" was shot in the city of Santorini in Greece and choreographed by Ahmed Khan.^[17][18][19] In Phuket, Roshan performed a stunt where he had to use a water jetpack called a Flyboard and go 45 feet high in the sky and then dive down in the water. Roshan thus became the first actor in Hollywood or Bollywood to do a flyboarding stunt in a film.^[20][21] He was injured during this schedule and subsequently had to undergo a brain surgery for removal of a blood clot from his brain.^[22] Also, the Kashmir schedule of the film was delayed because of unrest in the valley.^[23]

The delays caused the film's release date to be postponed to 2 October 2014.^[24] There were reports that the film had overshot its budget to ₹1.3 billion from a planned budget of around 80–90 crore.^[25] Anand denied such reports, saying "It's funny! Yes, Bang Bang! is a big-ticket film but its budget is as per the scale of the film. There's no question of exceeding it."^[26] The shooting resumed in January 2014, in Shimla,^[27] Manali, Mumbai, Abu Dhabi, Delhi^[28] and Prague.^[29] The shooting schedule in Shimla went on for straight six weeks.^[30] The Manali bridge where the majority of scenes were shot, has become a grand tourist attraction and it was renamed as Bang Bang Point.^[31][32] Just before the Abu Dhabi segment of the film, a song shoot was completed at an open-cafeteria in Film City, Mumbai on 19 April 2014. Shimla was created in Film City, Mumbai to shoot a song and few action sequences for the film. The film was shot for 20 days in Film City with the lead pair. After wrapping up the Mumbai schedule, the filming team left for Abu Dhabi.^[33]

The Abu Dhabi schedule of shooting was intense and action-packed. In Abu Dhabi, filming started early May, and took place at various locations in Abu Dhabi including the Corniche, Liwa oasis, Hyatt Capital Gate Hotel, Qasr al Sarab, Emirates Palace and Yas Island. In one of the chase sequences in the film, 120 cars were involved. The film also had used Formula 1 cars.^[34][35] Even after the brain surgery, all the stunts were performed by Roshan himself. The stunts were designed by Andy Armstrong^[36][37][38] and shot in Abu Dhabi.^[39] The Abu Dhabi segment of shooting was completed on 20 May in collaboration with twofour54.^[40][41] It is the first Bollywood film to be shot and co-produced in Abu Dhabi.^[40] The last leg of the film was scheduled in Prague. One stunt in which Roshan is on water skis while being pulled along by a sky plane was shot in a lake in Prague. He trained for four days to shoot this scene.^[42] Shooting wrapped on 15 July 2014.^[43][44]

While filming in Thailand, Roshan suffered a head injury from a stunt accident and underwent brain surgery at the Hinduja Hospital, done by B. K. Misra to relieve subacute-subdural hematoma.^[45][46]

Marketing

On the lines of the popular Ice Bucket Challenge – one of the biggest trends of the year, the dare on social media, Roshan came up with the dare-to-do game to Bollywood co-stars Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Nargis Fakhri, Sonam Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Farhan Akhtar, Priyanka Chopra, Dino Morea, Uday Chopra and Dabboo Ratnani on Twitter asking them to post videos of themselves doing a particular task and adding the hashtag #bangbangdare to it. Roshan even dared the smokers asking them not to smoke for 3 days.^{[47][48][49][50][51][52]} One of the companies challenged Roshan himself, where he was asked to buy bed sheets from their store and if he did, ₹500,000 would be donated to city hospitals. He took up the dare sportingly.^[53] While most stars take to television shows to generate buzz about their films, Roshan refrained from promoting his movie through reality TV shows.^[54][55]

To protect the film from piracy, the makers of the film approached the Court of Piracy with the plea that the film should not be viewed on any device or broadcast on any platform through the Internet without their permission and submitted a list of 90 websites. The Court responded positively on that and restrained them all from making the film available on the Internet.^[56]

A promotional mobile video game based on the film was developed by Nazara Technologies and released the same year.^[57]

Critical response

Bollywood Hungama gave 3.5/5 stars and wrote "If you are looking high-octane action scenes, sleek visuals, melodious music, Bang Bang should definitely be your pick for this extended weekend."^[70] Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave 3/5 stars and wrote "Bang Bang makes more noise and little sense. This desi adaptation of Knight and Day has charm in abundance because of its effervescent lead pair, but it lacks coherence."^[71] Nandhini Srinivasan from FilmiBeat gave 3/5 stars and wrote "Bang Bang is a total action-packed fun entertainer for the long weekend holiday".^[72]

Mohar Basu of Koimoi gave 2.5/5 stars and wrote "Bang Bang is a plain film that is mounted on a breathtaking canvas and remains steady at the superficial level only."^[73] Rajeev Masand on IBN Live gave 2/5 stars and commented that "the film isn't unwatchable, but certainly tests your patience."^[74] Paloma Sharma of Rediff gave 1.5/5 stars and wrote "A worse official remake of an already bad original, Bang Bang is more noise and less sound."^[75]

India

Bang Bang! (Hindi) had a theatrical run for 5 weeks with a final domestic nett of around ₹1.81 billion.^[78][79] The Tamil and Telugu versions of the film grossed around ₹60 million nett.^[80]

Overseas

Bang Bang! earned $4.89 million overseas in its opening weekend. The biggest debut came from the UAE ($1.8 million), North America ($3.35 million), United Kingdom ($922,000).^[81] At the end of its theatrical run overseas, the film earned $13.97 million. The highest revenue came from Gulf ($4.46 million), US/Canada ($2.62 million), UK (£1.165 million) and Australia (Aus $457,000).^[82]