After the success of 3 Idiots (2009), Hirani and Joshi began scripting their next project; finding similarities with the plot of Inception (2010), they scrapped the film. It was later rewritten with a different angle and tone. During production, the film was initially titled Talli and later Ek Tha Talli before being changed to PK as the latter title was found to be too similar to Ek Tha Tiger (2012). The film's soundtrack was composed by
Shantanu Moitra,
Ajay–Atul and
Ankit Tiwari with lyrics written by
Swanand Kirkire, Amitabh Varma and
Manoj Muntashir.
UTV Motion Pictures acquired the distribution rights of the film. PK was the first Bollywood film to be shot in
Belgium.[9]
A nude humanoid alien lands on Earth on a research mission in
Rajasthan, India, and is stranded when the remote control to summon his spaceship is stolen. In Belgium, an Indian woman, Jagat "Jaggu" Janani Sahni, meets a Pakistani man, Sarfaraz Yousuf, and falls in love with him. Her father objects to their relationship, citing their different religions, and consults their family
godman, Tapasvi Maharaj, who predicts Sarfaraz will betray Jaggu. Determined to prove them wrong, Jaggu asks Sarfaraz to marry her, only to be heartbroken after receiving an unsigned letter calling off their wedding.
Jaggu returns to India and becomes a journalist. She is intrigued after finding the alien distributing pamphlets about a "missing" God. She earns his trust by rescuing him when he attempts to take money from a temple's donation box as a "refund" on God's broken promises, and he opens up to her. He begins stealing clothes and money, and befriends a bandmaster, Bhairon Singh. He learns the
Bhojpuri language at a brothel by holding hands and exchanging memories with a prostitute, and in
Delhi starts looking for the thief who stole his spaceship's remote control. He earns the name "PK" (drunk) as people assume he is intoxicated. When told only God can help him, he begins practicing many Indian religions, including
Hinduism,
Sikhism,
Christianity and
Islam, attempting to find "God" to no avail. Later, he is shocked to discover Tapasvi has and refuses to return his remote, claiming it was a gift from God. Believing his story after brief hesitation, Jaggu promises to help PK.
After Jaggu pranks an unknown caller in front of him, PK naively conjectures Tapasvi and his other godmen must be unintentionally dialing a "wrong number" to communicate with God, advising the public against engaging in meaningless rituals for their prayers. Intrigued, Jaggu encourages the public to expose
fraudulent godmen by sending their videos to her news channel. Gradually, this "wrong number" campaign turns into a popular mass movement, much to the dismay of Tapasvi. Meanwhile, Bhairon finds the thief in Rajasthan and informs PK he had sold the remote to Tapasvi. PK realises Tapasvi was a fraud all along, intentionally misleading people. Bhairon and the thief are killed in a terrorist attack.
Tapasvi confronts PK on-air, asking him what the "right number" is. PK claims people should believe in the "real" God that created them instead of other fraudulent godmen and their "duplicate" God. Tapasvi claims he has a direct connection to "God", citing his prediction of Sarfaraz's betrayal to prove Muslims to be liars. Having absorbed Jaggu's memories earlier, PK claims he can disprove his prediction, and reveals Sarfaraz had not written the letter to Jaggu, citing the presence of another bride as a possible recipient that day. Shocked, Jaggu contacts the
Pakistani Embassy in Belgium where Sarfaraz worked part-time, and learns Sarfaraz has been awaiting her call for a long time, proving he still loves her. It is revealed Sarfaraz had found the same letter that day and, believing it to be from Jaggu, stopped contacting her. Jaggu and Sarfaraz tearfully reconnect while Jaggu’s father, having realised Tapasvi’s true colours forces him to return the remote to PK.
PK is able to return to his planet with his remote. When leaving, he takes two suitcases full of audio tapes, having filled them with recordings of Jaggu's voice. Jaggu listens to the tapes in his absence and finds the love note he wrote for her earlier, realizing he had fallen in love with her but chose not to confess due to her feelings for Sarfaraz. She chooses not to directly confront PK and tearfully watches him walk towards his spaceship. After his departure, Jaggu publishes a book about PK, grateful for her experience with him. A year later, PK returns to Earth on a new research mission on human nature with more members of his species.
"PK" was the only film which began with a desire to say something. I can't say what that thing is. The battle was the other way round—how do you say such a serious thing in an entertaining way? For many years, we were struggling, until we finally found a way, where it will be entertaining, won't be offensive—will hit the right notes, basically.
After the success of 3 Idiots, director Rajkumar Hirani and writer Abhijat Joshi started work for the next project.[16] They had written a story about a character who had the ability to get into another person's mind to make that person a better human being. They spent one year to write a story, but it turned out to be similar to Inception (2010). After watching Inception, Hirani and Joshi were shocked by the similarities. Eventually, they decided to scrap the film, then Hirani and Joshi reworked on the script, changing the entire tone and angle. It took five years to make the film and three years to write it.[17]
In PK, Khan played nine avatars (costume changes)[18] and, during the course of the film, the actor had to chew over 10,000
betelnut preparations called paan. [citation needed] Betelnut is a psychoactive stimulant used throughout Asia and characterised by its ability to stain users' mouths red.[19] "In real life paan is not a habit, I have it once in a while but for this film I chew paan for every scene. I would at times eat about 100 paans in a day. We had a paanwala [a paan maker] on the sets," said Khan in the report. For every take, Khan had to eat a fresh paan to fill his mouth. Before beginning the shoot, he would eat at least 10–15 paans to get the right color inside his mouth and on his lips.[20]
Viral Thakkar was the visual effects supervisor. The visual effects company was Riva Digital at a point employing 100 artists working on the film.[21]
Casting
In 2011, Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma signed on for the film.[22] Khan's nephew
Imran Khan and
Ranbir Kapoor were considered for a role which eventually went to
Sushant Singh Rajput before the release of his debut movie Kai Po Che (2013).[23] Earlier reports said that Rajkumar Hirani had signed
Arshad Warsi for the film when it was reported[24] that Arshad will be playing an important role. In 2013, Warsi said in an interview "I couldn't have worked out on dates. I wouldn't refuse Raju for anything. In fact, when he offered me the film, I did not even ask for the script, I was like I am ready to come on whenever you want. So that is the connection I share with Raju."[25] Before Rajput and Warsi were signed on,
R. Madhavan and
Sharman Joshi were said to be cast in the film.[26][27] Junaid Khan, son of Aamir Khan worked as an assistant director in this film.[28]
Characters
PK: The titular character was written to be a Chaplinesque, bumbling alien and meant to provide an outside view to the quirks and hypocrisies of the Indian society. To further accentuate the alien look, Khan developed a distinct appearance and mannerisms including wearing green contact lenses and not blinking while talking. Khan learned
Bhojpuri for the role[29] with the help of the language expert Shanti Bhushan. Rajkumar Hirani said in an interview, "When we write a script we usually visualize the characters in the film. How they look, talk and walk. But PK is one such character which was very difficult to visualize. We didn't have a reference point. PK was one such character, who didn't have a reference point. A character like him wasn't there in any book, nor did we meet someone like him in real life. We only knew that we wanted the character to be innocent and child-like. Now the question was, who is that actor who could look like a child. Someone who is perfect for the role of PK. The answer was obvious – Aamir Khan."[30]
Jagat "Jaggu" Janani: PK's friend and confidante, Jaggu is a television news reporter and is instrumental in spreading PK's message. She was envisioned as a fun-loving yet mature and independent woman. The producers wanted a distinct look for Jaggu and ended up trying several options over a few days before settling on one. Sharma said in an interview "Raju Sir wanted me to look happy, chirpy and peppy in PK. Keeping his brief in mind, the team came up with this look." She revealed that she was not required to cut her hair by remarking, "I have long hair, so hair stylists just wrapped my hair and tucked inside the wig".[31]
Bhairon Singh: Makers wanted somebody tall and sturdy for the role of Bhairon Singh and that's why Sanjay came in the picture. Vidhu Vinod Chopra shared, "The character Bhairon Singh is shown to be PK's good friend. The idea was that since PK is a tiny person, we wanted someone who in contrast is very huge. Such that, when Bhairon hugs PK, it looks funny as the tiny man would go completely unnoticed in Bhairon's arms."[32]
Title
In 2011, in its initial scripting stage, Hirani named the film Talli, then changed it to Ek Tha Talli which he loved, but later on came to know that Ek Tha Tiger was already in production (released in 2012). He dropped the idea and, after many titles, he came up with a title that only had initials, PK. After starting the film, Hirani felt PK was not a good enough title. He decided to change the title to Talli. But after a few weeks of shooting, Hirani decided to go back to the original title.[33]
Themes
Firstpost compared PK to Hirani and Khan's previous collaboration 3 Idiots, as they both involve "A socially awkward and 'different' young man—who walks and talks in a strange, enthusiastic childlike manner—observes the system, questions it, asks you to look at the many ludicrous things that inform it, and eventually brings about a minor revolution."[34]
Filming
According to Hirani, PK is a "satire on Hindu gods and their godmen".[35] The co-director Khan began looking for shooting locations in July 2012.[36] Second unit filming was set to begin in late 2012,[37] which was stalled after the rumoured departure of three department heads for the film and bad weather stalling initial shoots.[38][39] Hirani denied rumours that the film would be delayed, stating that principal filming had always been intended to begin in mid-January 2013 in Delhi and Rajasthan to "capture the winter of Delhi".[40][41]
Shooting officially began on 1 February 2013,[42] with the filming scheduled to occur over a 45-day period.[43] A one-week schedule of shooting of PK was in June 2013 in
Bruges, Belgium.[44] A 26-day schedule of shooting of PK started in Delhi from 27 September 2013.[45][46][47]
Marketing
The film was marketed by a Mumbai Based company named Spice PR owned by Prabhat Choudhary.[48]
The makers released a teaser trailer on 23 October 2014.[49] It achieved 3.4 million views on YouTube within five days,[50] subsequently receiving 12 million views. It was regarded as the most viewed movie trailers on
YouTube.[51] The teaser was attached with the film Happy New Year (2014).[52]
In August, the makers found a new promotional strategy to interact with the audiences by introducing talking standees. This was the first time a Bollywood film used a talking standee at varied locations as a part of its promotions. The standee had Khan talking to people in a prominent places in popular
theatres and
multiplexes.[53]
On 7 December 2014, Khan began the city tour for promotions with Patna. The character he plays speaks in Bhojpuri which is the main language used for communication in Bihar. Aamir said at the event "I have decided to launch the promotional campaign of my film PK from Bihar to connect with the language. My character speaks Bhojpuri in the film." Hence, the actor decided to start his promotional schedule from Bihar. Although he wanted to visit Bhojpur, which is 60 kilometres from Bihar, he could not because of security issues. In Bihar he visited a litti chokha stall. The visit resulted in a surge of customers to the shop, and the shop owner put up pictures of Khan eating the local delicacy.[54] Then the crew proceeded to Varanasi where they had a screening of their film 3 Idiots and interacted with the people. Khan made an impromptu visit to Krishana Paan shop to savour a Banarasi pan. The actor specially removed time from his schedule to visit this place. He enjoyed a "mitha banarasi paan" there. After the crew visited Delhi, Ahemdabad, Raipur, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Indore, Bangalore and other locations in India.[55] Aamir and makers also promoted the film in Dubai.[56]
PK: The Game
Indiagames, a part of
Disney India's
Interactive business, announced the launch of the official mobile game 'PK' based on the film. On 14 December 2014,
Aamir Khan,
Anushka Sharma,
Rajkumar Hirani,
Vidhu Vinod Chopra,
Siddharth Roy Kapur, managing director of
Disney India and Sameer Ganapathy, VP and head, Interactive of Disney India launched the game at the Reliance Digital Store in Juhu amidst much fanfare.[57] The game was developed for both feature phones and smartphones. It was launched on
Google Play,
iOS App Store and
Windows platform. In the game, the player gets to don many avatars of Aamir Khan as seen in the movie, along with a special avatar of Anushka Sharma, as he embarks upon an exciting endless running adventure. Set against an Indian background, the gamer runs amidst the by-lanes of Delhi, railway tracks in a desert (as seen in the movie), and collect a maximum number of paans (as PK is seen enjoying eating paan in the movie). The gamer has to avoid a number of obstacles on the way, which include cows, buses, Delhi trains, rickshaws, traffic jams, and more. The backdrops in the game give the player the feel of the movie.[58]
Release
PK was earlier scheduled to release on 6 June 2014.[59] The director (who is also editor of the film),
Rajkumar Hirani, wanted to spend more time editing. Besides, some portions with Sanjay Dutt were yet to be shot. Also, the second season of
Satyamev Jayate was to kick off from March. So Aamir Khan was not sure if he would be able to promote PK in June. Hence the makers settled for a December release.[60][61]
PK was released on 19 December 2014, as the 200th
Bollywood release in 2014.[62][63] The release was later expanded to 6000 screens worldwide, which included 5200 screens in India[64] and 844 screens overseas.[65]
PK was initially released in 4844 screens worldwide.[66][67][68][69]PK has been made tax-free in
Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar.[70][71][72]PK is the widest Indian movie released in the UK (198 screens), Pakistan (over 70 screens), Australia (35 screens) and outside of India (844 screens in over 40 overseas markets).[73]PK was released theatrically in
China on 22 May 2015 across 4,600 screens.[74] It had a dubbed
Mandarin Chinese version, with
Wang Baoqiang voicing Khan's role.[75] The film was released in
South Korea and
Hong Kong on 3 September 2015,[76][77] and in
Japan on 29 October 2016.[78]
Distribution
Koimoi reported rumours of a deal in which the satellite rights were sold for ₹850 million (US$13.93 million) to
Sony Entertainment Television if the domestic business reached ₹3 billion net.[79][80] The music rights were sold for ₹150 million (US$2.46 million).[81]DNA reported, "Being the first film to use Rentrak, Khan has taken the first initiative to bring in a paradigm shift from the usual norms followed in Bollywood. He had clearly enforced the idea of Rentrak to be brought in to bring more accuracy when it comes to box office figures."[82]
The soundtrack is composed by
Shantanu Moitra,
Ajay–Atul and
Ankit Tiwari with lyrics written by
Swanand Kirkire, Amitabh Varma and Manoj Muntashir. The song "Tharki Chokro" is the first single, released on 24 October 2014.[83] The video focuses on
Aamir Khan and
Sanjay Dutt,[84] with the song sung by
Swaroop Khan and composed by Ajay–Atul with lyrics penned by Swanand Kirkire.[85] The second single, "Love Is a Waste of Time", which pictured Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma, was released on 31 October 2014 on YouTube.[86][87] The song is sung by
Sonu Nigam and
Shreya Ghoshal, composed by Shantanu Moitra with the lyrics of Amitabh Varma.[88] "
Chaar Kadam" was released on 2 November 2014 on the T-Series YouTube.[89] The song is sung by
Shaan and Shreya Ghoshal, composed by Shantanu Moitra with lyrics by Swanand Kirkire. The full soundtrack was released on 5 November 2014.[90]
Reception
Srijana Mitra Das of The Times of India gave the movie 4 stars out of 5.[91] Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave 3.5 stars quoting "It's a courageous film that sticks to Hirani's well-oiled formula".[92]NDTV gave 5 stars calling it "PK is a winner all the way, a film that
Raj Kapoor,
Bimal Roy and
Guru Dutt would have been proud of had they been alive. Hirani is without a doubt their most worthy standard-bearer."[93]Bollywood Hungama described it as "a solid entertainer that will surely entertain the masses and classes alike" and gave 4.5 out of 5 stars.[94]Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave PK 4 out of 5 stars and called it "a triumph" and argued that Khan "soars high".[95] However, Sukanya Verma of the same publication called the film "a mixed bag of spunk and sentimentality", while still giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars.[96] Rohit Vats of Hindustan Times gave 4 out of 5 stars and said "Khan steals the show with his performance".[97] Rohit Khilnani of India Today gave 4.5 stars, and said "Go watch the film & watch it ASAP!"[98] Edmund Lee of South China Morning Post gave PK 3.5 stars.[77] In Japan, Yuri Wakabayashi of
Eiga gave the film a positive review in 2016.[99]
In 2019, Film Companion ranked Khan's performance among the 100 best in Indian film for the past decade.[100]
PK had its box office figures tracked by
Rentrak,[101] a United States–based company that specialises in audience measurements. PK became the first Bollywood film to earn ₹1 billion (US$16.39 million) net from online bookings.[102]PK grossed ₹183.09crore (US$28.955 million) worldwide in its first week.[103][104] It became the highest-grossing Indian film, in both domestic as well as international markets.[105][106] The film's final worldwide gross was ₹753.36 crore[107] (US$118.92million). It was the 71st highest-grossing film of 2014.[108]PK was the first Indian film to gross more than ₹7 billion[109][110][111] and
US$100 million worldwide.[112][105][113][114]
PK earned ₹266.3 million net on its opening day.[130] It showed growth on its second day, earning around ₹303.4 million net.[131] On its third day, the film brought in ₹384.4 million net, bringing its weekend take to ₹954.1 million net.[132]
PK had the highest collections for a Hindi film on its first Monday, earning around ₹212.2 million net.[133] Over the next two days it grossed ₹193.6 million and ₹195.5 million net respectively, taking its total to ₹1,555.4 million.[134] On Christmas Day the film earned ₹275.5 million net, taking its first week total to ₹1.831 billion net.[135][136]
On its second Friday, PK brought in around ₹144.8 million net.[137] The film kept growing in its second weekend, earning ₹171.6 million on Saturday and ₹218.5 million on Sunday, taking the weekend total to ₹534.9 million net.[138] It earned ₹100.8 million on its second Monday, ₹91.1 million on Tuesday and ₹90.5 million on Wednesday. With this, the film took its total to around ₹2,648.2 million net and became the
highest-grossing film in India in just 13 days.[139][140] The film set a record second week figure of ₹957.8 million, taking its total to ₹2,788.7 million net.[119]PK made an all-time record in the Mumbai circuit by grossing there more than ₹1 billion net.[141]
The film netted around ₹267.5 million in its third weekend, reaching ₹3.0562 billion net in seventeen days.[142]PK went on to net ₹3.175 billion in India and grossed ₹1.53 billion overseas for a worldwide gross of ₹5.77 billion in three weeks.[143][118] The film earned a final domestic gross of ₹448.74 crore (US$73.53 million),[144] including a domestic net of ₹3.408 billion.[145]
PK had a second phase of overseas release in
East Asia, most prominently in
China.[154][155] It became an instant hit, grossing US$5.14–5.3 million in first three days of release due to good word-of-mouth—a record for an Indian film (previously held by Dhoom 3), debuting at second place at the Chinese box office behind Avengers: Age of Ultron.[156][157]PK became the highest-grossing Indian film in China in just 72 hours[157][158] and grossed US$19.5 million (Rs 1.22 billion) in China.[154][159][160][161][162] It became the first Indian film to pass the 100 million
yuan ($16.11 million) threshold, which is considered rare for a non-Hollywood foreign film.[163]
The film grossed
¥119million[122] (US$20million)[164] in China. In addition, it grossed US$0.3million in
South Korea, US$870,000 in
Hong Kong, and US$289,000 in
Taiwan.[115]PK was also a hit in Japan when it was released there in 2016, particularly in
Tokyo; in
Shinjuku, for example, it was the year's second highest-earning film at
Cinema Qualite.[165]
Director Hirani has confirmed that a sequel will be made starring Khan and Ranbir Kapoor. He said, "We will make the sequel. We had shown Ranbir [Kapoor's character landing on the planet] towards the end of the film, so there is a story to tell. But Abhijat (Joshi, writer) has not written it yet. The day he writes it, we will make it."[177][178][179]
When the shoot was going on in Chandni Chowk area of Delhi, an
FIR was lodged against the makers of the film for allegedly
hurting religious sentiments in October 2013.[180] The objection was regarding a scene where a man dressed as the Hindu deity
Shiva, pulls the rickshaw with two
burqa clad women as passengers.[181]
In July 2014, the film's poster sparked a controversy[vague] as it featured
Aamir Khan posing almost
nude with only a
radio cassette recorder covering his
genitals.[35][182] Although the
Central Board of Film Certification had cleared the film, a
PIL was filed in the court by the All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front to ban its release saying it promoted nudity and vulgarity. The
Supreme Court of India dismissed the plea and gave the film a green signal.[183][184] A case was lodged against Aamir Khan and Rajkumar Hirani under
section 295A in Rajasthan.[185]
Swaroopanand Saraswati in January 2015 raised questions with the
Censor Board about the film, demanding that the
CBI investigate how the film received its certification from the Censor Board despite several members of the Board requesting that the film be reviewed again, but with no action taken.[194]
The Sunni clerics of
All India Muslim Personal Law Board demanded the removal of some scenes of the movie which they believed was hurting religious sentiments.[195]