Remakes of old Hindi films is the latest trend in the Bollywood these days. Many directors have got on to the bandwagon of remaking super-hits of yesteryears, thinking it to be a safe bet whereas box office collections are concerned. Many remakes of popular Hindi films have come up with great responses from the audience, hence giving enough courage and guts to remake certain classics or blockbusters to cash in superb collections.
Remake of Remake
Some directors prefer taking the plot of the Hindi films are recreating their magic with a contemporary touch and their signature style into it. For example Devdas the cult hit starring Dilip Kumar was remade by director Sanjay Leela Bhansali wherein the lead role of Devdas was essayed by none other than Shah Rukh Khan, the role of Paro by Aishwarya Rai and Chandramukhi by Madhuri Dixit Nene.Sanjay gave the film a very ‘Bhansali’ touch by adding beautiful colours, artistic set design, elaborate costumes and heart stirring music.
The movie was an instant hit with the audience and hence gave director Anurag Kashyap enough guts to then remake it yet again. Anurag’s story was set on a very contemporary backdrop with Abhay Deol as the modern times’ Devdas, Mahie Gill as Paro and Kalki Koechlin as Chadramukhi. The movie fell into parallel cinema’s category and few people bet on its success. But as the movie was up in theatre, people were taken aback by Anurag’s bold and contemporary version. They were pleasantly surprised with his wonderful experimentation that gave way to great box office collection.
Over Enthusiastic Remakes
The remaking trend however has been very successful in Bollywood but not all films were as big hits as Devdas. Ram Gopal Varma took up the task to remake ‘Sholay’, which was the biggest blockbuster of Indian Cinema before ‘3 Idiots’ was made. Varma renamed his remake ‘Aag’.
A highly disappointed and angry audience and very critical film critics gave super negative responses and critiques, eventually making the movie a super duper dud at the box office. Similar was the case with ‘Umrao Jaan’, an aesthetically beautiful film starring Rekha and Farookh Sheikh as the lead which was remade by J.P Dutta with the same title but Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan as the lead. This movie too bombed at the box office with meagre collections.
Old Wine in New and costly bottle !
Another super-hit of yesteryears ‘Don’ that starred Amitabh Bachchan and Zeenat Aman as the lead was remade in 2006 by the then upcoming director Farhan Akhtar. The new ‘Don’ starred Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra. The audiences received the film sportingly with few negative reactions making the film a hit.
Get Ready for more ..
Currently, following the remake trend, the films in the pipeline for being remade are ‘Satte pe Satta’ by Soham, ‘Chashme Baddoor’ by David Dhawan and ‘Agneepath’ by Karan Johar where Sanjay Dutt will re-play the character of popular villain Kancha Cheena ,. Now , we just have to wait and watch to see how successful their box office collections are and how long is the remake trend going to survive in Bollywood.
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