On the completion of 50 years of Yash Raj Films (YRF), chairman and filmmaker Aditya Chopra penned a note for his late father Yash Chopra, who had founded the production house and unveiled a new logo of YRF to mark the beginning of the 50-year celebrations of the production house. Interestingly, September 27 also marks the 88th birth anniversary of Yash Chopra. “In 1970, my father Yash Chopra left the security and comfort of his brother Mr. BR Chopra and formed his own company. Till then, he was a salaried employee of BR Films and didn’t own anything of his own. He did not know how to run a business and did not even have the basic knowledge of what goes into making a company. All he had was a strong belief in his talent and hard work and a dream to be self-reliant.” “That conviction of a creative man backing nothing but himself and his art gave birth to Yash Raj Films. Mr. V Shantaram, who owned Rajkamal Studios, graciously gave him a small room in his studio for his office. My father didn›t know then, that the small company that he started in a tiny room, would one day become the biggest film company of the Indian Film Industry,”
Aditya wrote in a statement. Recalling the making the blockbuster film ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’, Aditya Chopra added: “1995, as YRF entered its 25th year, my directorial debut film ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’ released. The historic success of that film gave me the confidence to give wings to some crazy risky ideas that I had for the future of YRF. Besides the immense love that my father had for me, he now also had a lot of faith in my ideas because of the miraculous success of my film. I had foreseen the advent of international corporate studios coming to India and taking over our business.” “I wanted us to achieve a certain scale so that we could retain our independence before they came in. My father contradicted his conservative mindset and bravely indulged all my bold initiatives. And in 10 quick years, we went from a film production house to India’s first fully integrated independent film studio,” he stated. Chopra thanked every person associated with the company over the last five decades. “Across 5 decades YRF, at its core, has been a traditional company with deep-rooted old world values and a conservative approach to business. This perfect balance of traditional and modern is what defines Yash Raj Films,” the statement read. Having worked with superstars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, YRF has been entertaining the audiences for five decades with movies such as ‘Chandni’, ‘Silsila’, ‘Darr’, ‘Dil To Pagal Hai’, ‘Mohabbatein’, ‘Veer-Zaara’, ‘Bunty Aur Babli’, and ‘Chak De Indi’, ‘Dhoom’ franchise, ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’ and ‘War’.