After an ignorable comedy-drama All Is Well (2015), Sumit got to pen dialogues for the film that changed the course of his career: Raj and DK’s horror-comedy Stree (2018). This collaboration with the director duo culminated in writing for The Family Man (2019-21) and Guns and Gulaabs (2023). He then went on to write dialogues for Shah Rukh Khan in Jawan. Sumit remembers the writing process for the blockbuster as “tricky”. “For every big star, the dialogue has to be both for the character and the star,” he says. “But if only the superstar in an actor is speaking through the dialogues, people would rather watch his interviews. It’s a fine balance.”Most recently, he delivered the screenplay and dialogues for the Kartik Aaryan sports-biopic Chandu Champion. The Hindi spoken in the Kabir Khan directorial has a Marathi twang. Kartik’s character Murlikant pronounces champion as ‘champee-on’. An informative touch. “It’s all because of my interest in slangs and languages,” says Sumit. “I get fascinated by how language in our country changes every few kilometres. Moreover, I had already worked on a script which was set in a Maharashtrian background .”Last year, with two SRK blockbusters (Pathaan and Jawan) and one Ranbir Kapoor hit (Animal), it seemed like Hindi cinema was out of the slump. However, the first six months of 2024 have been dismal, with star vehicles like Fighter and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan unable to pull audiences to theatres. Commenting on this, Sumit says, “I think we in the Hindi film industry get too excited with a new concept or an idea.That excitement fizzles out for the audience in the first 15-20 minutes of a film. Now they want change, a new way of telling a familiar tale.” The conversation has also shifted towards how star fees and entourage costs are bleeding the industry, while writers and editors get peanuts. “Sometimes the star’s makeup artist gets paid more than the writer,” he says. “In a post-pandemic world, it has been proven that barring a few stars, it’s content that drives the commerce.”He also explains how paying writers well can ensure good cinema. “When writers get good money, they can relax and dedicate themselves completely to one project,” he says. “But since they have to juggle many gigs to make ends meet, their energy is divided and they are unable to create one thing that can compete at a global level.” The screenwriter has a busy schedule ahead. His last work was Chandu Champion, upcoming is Shahid Kapoor’s Deva, Varun Dhawan’s Baby John, Raj and DK’s desi spy outing Citadel: Honey Bunny and the third season of The Family Man. With so much work, we ask him if there are days when he is completely out of new ideas. “No,” he says. “The only dearth is of time.”
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