Remake of history a hot funda in Bollywood

One of the tragedies of Bollywood has been that we seem to be running out of good ideas to make films. How else do you explain the burgeoning number of remakes being made these days? With films flopping left right and centre — as was the case with the likes of ‘ Phas Gaye Re Obama’ and ‘ Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey’ recently — a top filmmaker has now bought over the remake rights of the comedy ‘ Chupke Chupke’ starring Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan. The film directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee is one of the biggest comedies in Hindi cinema and should make for a great remake if it is done well.

Rohit Shetty recently bought over the remake rights of ‘ Satte Pe Satta’ and is getting Sanjay Dutt to star in it. Hopefully, both these remakes can be made well enough for us to be entertained.

Even as we wait for the Hrithik Roshan starrer remake of ‘ Agneepath’, we dread what happened to a filmmaker like Ram Gopal Varma after he remade ‘ Sholay’ as ‘ Ram Gopal Varma Kee Aag’. Even Abhishek Bachchan has expressed his doubts over the remake of ‘ Agneepath’ and commented unkindly on the kind of pressure that Hrithik Roshan will be under as he essays the role of Vijay Dinanath Chauhan that Bachchan Jr’s father Amitabh Bachchan had essayed many years ago.

For the record, the remake of ‘ Victoria No 203’ flopped badly as did the ‘ Sholay’ remake. The remake of Mehboob Khan’s ‘ Anmol Ghadi’ as ‘ Jeena Sirf Merre Liye’ was also a dud when Vashu Bhagnani got it remade with Tusshar and Kareena.

SRK’s ‘ Don’ which was a remake of Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘ Don’ was not as huge a hit as one thought it would be. Rishi Kapoor’s ‘ Karz’ remade with Himesh Reshammiya also failed at the box office. The JP Dutta directed ‘ Umrao Jaan’ also got a lot of brickbats and failed to make the cut with the audience.

However, despite getting some brickbats, Sanjay Leela Bhansali successfully remade ‘ Devdas’ and Pradeep Sarkar too remade ‘ Parineeta’. Interestingly both these pieces of work were based on novels written by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee.

Nevertheless it seems to be the season for remakes even as earlier announced remakes from ‘ Amar Akbar Anthony,’ ‘ Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam’ to ' Baiju Bawra' have come unstuck.