As 2012 comes to a close and Salman Khan's 'Dabangg 2' is the only notable release left to hit the screens, it is also time for quite a few filmmakers out there to reflect on how the year looked for them.

One such filmmaker is Madhur Bhandarkar who fondly looks back at how his pet project 'Heroine' was finally completed and ended up being the only female oriented film other than 'Kahaani' to gain some good moolah this year.

While one waits to see how whether the award winning director would have some more aces up his sleeves as nominations are announced at close of year, he is still a content man.

"God gave me good enough reason to celebrate while audience has given me a lot as well by granting a good response to 'Heroine'. The film went on to do 53-54 crores gross worldwide while Kareena Kapoor's role was applauded a lot as well.

In fact I met her just a few days back and she told me that the kind of SMSs that she was getting was simply unbelievable. I think that is great for me. I am very happy that the way I visualised the film, I stuck to my conviction", says Madhur.

He is well aware of the fact that quite a few wanted to pull his film down.

"Yes, there were people who were cynical about the film, especially since they felt that I had represented the industry in a literal manner. However I feel that I gave justice to Kareena Kapoor's character.

I did stick to the script and assured that what came on screen was real. Why should I have shied away from that when I have always shown reality about other fields and premises as well in my other films? I showed the film industry in the same manner in which I watch my fraternity day in and night out. I have to be real and I am very happy with it", he says.

As for the film not quite entering the 100 crore club, he says with a hearty laugh, "You can't expect this movie with a budget of 21-22 crore to be a 100 crore picture.

Though people expectations were like that, it was never meant to be like that. Commercially speaking, at the end of the day my producers have recovered the cost so what else do you need? See, there is certain amount of yardstick to every movie and its budget and that's why all my films have worked very well at the box office and made money."