Director Rajkumar Santoshi says investors were hesitant to back his film *Batwara 1947*, starring Sunny Deol, before production began. In comments reported by Indian outlets, Santoshi says potential financiers compared the project to earlier Sunny Deol films and expected a similar kind of performance and tone.
Santoshi states that some investors wanted *Batwara 1947* to resemble films such as *Ghayal* or *Ghatak*, where Sunny plays a character who overcomes opponents decisively. He characterizes this as a reason they perceived the project as a “risk,” implying uncertainty about how audiences would respond to a different kind of story and setup.
While both reports center on the same remarks by Santoshi, they mainly differ in wording and emphasis—one focusing on “why investors hesitated,” and the other explicitly framing the hesitation as labeling the film “risky.” Neither source disputes the core claim that investor expectations about what Sunny Deol’s films should deliver influenced early funding confidence.
