All about Remakes in Bollywood

An article on Bollywood remakes by guest writer Archit Mishra

Change is the need of the hour. And Bollywood isn’t any exception. One of the recent trends in the industry is adaption to readymade scripts, the Remakes. Frankly speaking, remakes are not alien to our industry. To all those who question the credibility of remakes, it might come as a shock, but remakes have existed since long. The mother of all Indian comedies (well, at least for me) Hrishikesh Mukherji’s Chupke Chupke was a remake of Bengali film Chhadmabeshi.

With the rise in the numbers of remakes that are being churned out, I thought of creating a neutral forum where we can analyse and discuss all vital aspects of Remakes.

Positives of remakes

• Commercially successful script, that just need to be adapted for the Hindi audience.
• Boxoffice: Almost all remakes in recent times have struck box-office gold.
• Filmmakers can now analyze the loopholes in the original film, the critic/audience responses and improve their end product.
• Generally, remakes offer good scripts with a chance for better release and a much wider audience.

Negatives:-

• Loss of Creativity: With remakes around, a producer might not want to take risk and thus there is less scope for fresh scripts.
• Known storyline: With TV, internet and print media acting as a 24*7 interface between cine lovers and Bollywood, most of the times, we are already aware of most of the scenes in remakes.
• Type Casting: After tasting super success with a particular remake formula, a superstar or a production house might never want to make a switch to a different genre or original stories and thus unfortunately end up getting type casted.

 

Observations from the above table

• Increase in the number of remakes over the course of time.
• Huge lead that remakes have got in terms of budget and box office collections as compared to original films.

Major Upcoming Remakes

• Ajay Devgn’s Son Of Sardaar (Maryada Ramanna – Tamil)
• Akshay Kumar’s Naam Hai Boss (Pokkiri Raja – Malayalam)
• Salman Khan’s Kick (Kick – Telugu)

Like most Bollywood entertainers these days, we wanted to have all the ingredients of a Blockbuster blog and this section is our very own masala tadka a.k.a “Item Number”. I’ve gone wild with my imagination and tried to pen down my “Dream Remakes”.

1. Amar Akbar Anthony

This Manmohan Desai super entertainer tops my list. If there is any superstar who can match Vinod Khanna in Khakhi uniform, it’s got to be our Chulbul Pandey. I would want the next-gen star Ranbir Kapoor to step into his father Rishi Kapoor’s shoes. And mind you, while I’m saying this, I can see that potential to play Akbar Illahabadi in his Tai Tai Phiss image. Last, but not the least, just imagine wicked Sunny getting into My Name is Anthony Gonzalves skin. Have you ever imagined the Khiladi acting that iconic Bachchan in front of the mirror? Or just compare the classic Amar-Anthony clash with Mujhse Shadi Karogi fight scene. Whoa!

Finally, it would be injustice if we refrain Manmohan Desai’s ardent student, Sajid Khan, from getting behind the camera for this remake.

2. The Shawshank Redemption

I would love to see our perfectionist Aamir Khan playing the lead role in the film which tops the IMDB chart. This film tells the story of a banker who is charged for his wife’s murder and how he manages to rewrite that prison’s fate. In this thriller, Nana Patekar would be my replacement to Morgan Freeman. After watching Don 2, I don’t think there is a better man than Farhan Akhtar to call the shots for this crime drama.

3. Deewaar

This Yash Chopra’s cult drama is a classic. Shahrukh Khan has remade Amitabh Bachchan’s Don and I guess he would be the perfect choice for smuggler Vijay. Going by his chemistry with Hrithik in K3G, HR would be apt for the role of SRK’s agyakaari brother Ravi in Khaki uniform. Visualize the iconic scene under bridge between these two on the big screen. And apart from Rakesh Roshan, I doubt anyone can replace Yashji for the Deewar remake.

4. Bad Boyz 2

While watching this Martin Lawrence-Will Smith starrer, I had to check the writer-director credits, for this seems to be a typical Bollywood masala with proper dose of action, comedy, romance and drama. It’s a story about two Narcotics officers who investigate the drug trafficking in Miami. I mean just bring on the masala master Rohit Shetty into the picture and change Miami to Goa, you have a film that has blockbuster written all over it. And who better than crackling Rowdy-Singham jodi of Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar?

Also, we would love to have your suggestions, feedbacks and thoughts on the concept of Remake and this write up as well. What remakes would you want to see and who should star in them?

Do post your own list of Dream remakes in the comments section below.

Article by Archit Mishra - Senior software engineer by profession and typical movie buff at heart. Always in search of good bollywood reads and use them in analysing Boxoffice uniquely.