India, Aug. 20 -- Bollywood actor Sunny Deol's Batwara 1947 has been struggling at the box office despite positive reviews for his performance. Amid this, filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi has revealed that investors considered the film's subject 'risky' and had apprehensions about Sunny playing a Muslim character.

In an interview with Galatta India, Rajkumar Santoshi recalled the struggle to secure financing for Batwara 1947 and said, "Most of the investors here in Mumbai came to know that Sunny Deol and I were doing a film; they wanted me to do a regular action film, a vigilante film. They were not ready to take this film, where Sunny is playing a Muslim character."

The director further said that while he had been reading reviews describing...