Shashank Khaitan


Shashank Khaitan is an Indian film writer, director and recently turned producer, who is known for his work in Hindi cinema. He has directed films like Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and Badrinath Ki Dulhania, which released in 2017. His work on the latter garnered him a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Director. His film Dhadak is an adaptation of the Marathi film Sairat. Khaitan has turned into a producer at Dharma Productions, his first production being Good Newwz.

Early life

Khaitan was born in Kolkata and raised in Nashik, Maharashtra, in a Marwari business family.
Although he was interested in watching movies since a very young age, he was initially more into sports, playing in cricket and tennis tournaments. At the age of 17, he decided to pursue a career in entertainment. He started off as a dance instructor and held events across the country. He soon moved to Mumbai.
Khaitan joined Whistling Woods International Institute, a film institute started and supported by veteran movie director Subhash Ghai, to break into the film industry. He credits the institute with giving him the technical background, and also credits the institute's faculty with making him feel comfortable on set by inviting the students to accompany them to set. While at Whistling Woods, Khaitan worked on his first attempted film, Sherwani Kahaan Hai, with some of his fellow students at Whistling Woods, but it was not successfully completed.
In 2008, Khaitan starred as Manohar in Roorkee By-Pass, a 22-minute drama directed by Arundhati Sen Verma, and assisted on the set of Subhash Ghai's Black & White and Yuvvraaj. He also made a brief appearance in the Varun Dhawan movie Disney's ABCD 2, a sequel to the dance-drama , in which he played one of the Bengaluru prelims judges of the World Dance Championship qualifiers. Previously, he had made an appearance in Habib Faisal's romantic action-drama film Ishaqzaade by Yash Raj Films, which marked the debut of Arjun Kapoor in a lead. Khaitan was seen playing Dharma Chauhan, one of two brothers to Parma Chauhan, played by Kapoor.

''[Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania]'' (2014)

Khaitan's initial plan with Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania was to make it a story of two con artists, similar to Bunty Aur Babli. However, as he worked on the script, he found the characters turning out sweeter than he had anticipated and fell in love. Khaitan cites Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Casablanca as inspiration for his script, and the film itself pays homage to DDLJ as well as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
Khaitan, who believed that Bollywood had not produced a great love story since Jab We Met, strove to keep the characters more real and grounded, while at the same time conveying a grand love story. In response to critics who claimed that the film continues some old Bollywood cliches such as approval of parents, he called this a reflection of how Indian society has not changed all that much since the making of DDLJ.
After finishing the first draft of his script, then with the title Humpty Sharma Di Love Story, Khaitan sent it to Dharma Productions. Karan Johar looked at the script, said he liked it, and said that Dharma Productions would make the film, though he was not sure if Khaitan would direct it. Khaitan made some improvements to the script and Johar decided to let Khaitan direct. This was a departure from precedents at Dharma, where most directors were people who had previously worked as assistant directors or assistant producers. Khaitan selected Dhawan and Alia Bhatt for the film after watching their performance in Student of the Year. One of Khaitan's goals with the filming was to "keep it real" and to make sure that all characters were well-prepared before they shot a scene.

''[Badrinath Ki Dulhania]'' (2017)

In May 2016, it was announced that Khaitan will write and direct another romantic comedy under the Dharma Productions banner with Dhawan and Bhatt playing the lead roles. Although the two films were to have different plots and characters, the film was considered to be the second installment in a franchise that began with Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania. The second installment, titled Badrinath Ki Dulhania, was released on 10 March 2017.

2018–present

His third directorial venture, Dhadak, starred debutantes Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor, and was produced under Dharma Productions in its first of many collaborations with Zee Studios, which produced Sairat, on which the film itself was loosely based. The film released on 20 July 2018 to mixed responses with criticism of the handling of the caste-class issue in the original, but it was a financial success.
On 19 February 2018, his fourth film, Rannbhoomi, starring Dhawan, was announced, with a tentative release date of Diwali 2020. He turned into a producer at Dharma Productions in December 2019 with Good Newwz, starring Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Diljit Dosanjh and Kiara Advani, which was critically and commercially successful and emerged as the fifth highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2019.
He is set to direct Dhawan and Kapoor alongside Bhumi Pednekar in the comedy Mr. Lele.

Filmography

YearTitleDirectorWriterScreenplayAssistant DirectorProducerNotes
2008Black & White-
2008Yuvvraaj-
2014Humpty Sharma Ki DulhaniaNominated—Filmfare Award for Best Debut Director
2017Badrinath Ki DulhaniaNominated—Filmfare Award for Best Director
2018Dhadak-
2019Good Newwz
2020
2020Dil Bechara
2021Mr. LelePre-production

Television