The announcement that Aamir Khan and Abhishek Bachchan would be spending several months in Chicago for the filming of their upcoming Bollywood production generated the kind of local-interest attention that major film shoots typically attract in American cities — a mix of fan excitement, practical questions about where and when filming would occur, and the broader economic and cultural dimensions of Bollywood productions that use international locations.

Chicago had become a reasonably established destination for Bollywood shoots, offering a combination of architectural drama — the lake, the skyline, the distinctive neighborhoods — with the logistical infrastructure of a major American city experienced with large film productions. The city's Indian and South Asian communities, concentrated in the north suburbs, ensured local audiences for whom a Bollywood film shot in their city carried personal resonance.

For the productions themselves, shooting abroad served multiple functions: it provided visually distinctive settings unavailable in India, it positioned the film as a certain kind of aspirational experience for audiences, and it could carry marketing value as a hook for diaspora audiences in the relevant country and city.

The detail of rented apartments rather than hotels spoke to the length of the stay — three months is a genuine residency rather than a location shoot — and implied a production intent on achieving a certain authenticity in its Chicago footage rather than simply using the city as backdrop for a brief sequence.

Such productions typically employed significant numbers of local crew and supporting cast members, including from Chicago's Indian-American community, creating a small but genuine economic and cultural exchange around the production.