"Redemption" keeps getting greenlit until it doesn't

Zee Studios has set a February 5, 2027 release date for Silaa, Omung Kumar's latest period drama — a romance-mystery-action hybrid set across Kashmir and Vietnam, starring Harshvardhan Rane. The announcement arrived with the kind of quiet confidence that studio press releases emit when nobody's quite sure whether hope or obligation is doing the talking. Here's the thing: each new project Kumar gets greenlit is the one that proves the last three wrong, until the studio finally recalibrates its expectations downward rather than its bet size.

Kumar has spent the past decade making visually assured films that festivals love and domestic audiences apparently avoid. Chandni Bar, Sarbjit, Manikarnika — each one landed respectable reviews, festival runs, international distribution deals. Each one also underperformed at home, the gap between critical standing and box-office reality widening with every release.

Zee's continued backing of Kumar follows a pattern that consumed Sanjay Leela Bhansali's entire post-2015 career. After Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013) succeeded, each subsequent film. Bajirao Mastani (2015), Padmaavat (2018). Was greenlighted as redemption, as if the previous underperformance could be overcome by throwing more resources at the same formula. The studio and director both mistook critical credibility for market appetite, which are not the same thing and never were. The films got bigger. The returns got smaller. Eventually Bhansali had to rebuild at a different scale entirely.

What makes Kumar's trajectory worth watching is that Zee hasn't learned yet. Or believes this time will be different. Studios do this. They confuse prestige with power. A film that plays well internationally, that attracts serious actors and serious cinematographers, that earns festival recognition, must surely earn its domestic audience eventually. The assumption makes intuitive sense. It is also frequently wrong, which is precisely why studios keep making it.

The real question isn't whether Silaa will succeed. It's whether Zee will recognize the moment when they stop betting on Kumar's redemption and start betting on a different director entirely. That moment arrives quietly, usually disguised as routine business. By then the pattern is unbreakable. By then everyone inside the institution has become invested in proving the last decision right.