Ram Gopal Varma speculates about why Aamir Khan’s Thugs of Hindostan bombed; says Forrest Gump remake was his dream project since Rangeela days

Director Ram Gopal Varma recently recalled that Aamir Khan had been obsessed with Tom Hanks' Forrest Gump since the time they all were working on Rangeela.

By: Entertainment Desk

Kochi | August 4, 2024 01:12 PM IST

4 min read

Director Ram Gopal Varma recently recalled that Aamir Khan had been obsessed with Tom Hanks' Forrest Gump since the time they all were working on Rangeela.

Director Ram Gopal Varma with actor Aamir Khan. (Express archive photo)

Widely regarded as one of the most significant Hindi films of the ’90s, director Ram Gopal Varma’s Rangeela (1995) transformed Bollywood in various ways and gave a major career boost to its cast and crew. Starring Aamir Khan, Urmila Matondkar and Jackie Shroff in the lead roles, Rangeela also played a key role in establishing Ram Gopal Varma, often referred to by his initials RGV, as one of the pioneers of new-age Indian cinema.

Recently, RGV had criticised Indian film directors for underestimating the audience’s intelligence, contrasting how Hollywood can pull off a film like Oppenheimer when big stars collaborate, while Bollywood manages to produce only Thugs of Hindostan (2018). He, however, remarked that on a good day, a flop could have been a hit. Elaborating on his point, he referenced Thugs of Hindostan, directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya, saying, “A bad film is an individual’s perception. You never know what people are going to like; you can’t outguess the masses.”

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During a recent chat with Galatta Plus, he added, “It had all the elements, and that’s what they thought. All the think tanks associated with that project — from Aamir Khan to Aditya Chopra and the other big guys — are some of the top filmmakers in the country. They together thought it would work, which means it could have worked as well.”

Thugs of Hindostan was one of the most expensive Bollywood films of that time and was made at an estimated budget of Rs 300 crore. Despite high expectations, it grossed only Rs 327 crore worldwide, according to industry tracker Sacnilk, making it a box office bomb. Produced by Aditya Chopra under the banner of his Yash Raj Films, the movie also starred Amitabh Bachchan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh.

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In the same conversation, RGV recalled that Aamir Khan had been obsessed with director Robert Zemeckis’ American comedy-drama Forrest Gump (1994), starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in the lead roles, since the time they all were working on Rangeela. It may be recalled that Forrest Gump was officially remade in Hindi as Laal Singh Chaddha, helmed by Advait Chandan and featuring Aamir and Kareena Kapoor Khan in the lead roles.

“Aamir loves Forrest Gump. So it (Laal Singh Chaddha) was like a dream project for him. And he’d been making it in his head. It could have come out well or not, I don’t know. But the point is, by the time you reach the end, he’s catering to an audience who had never seen Forrest Gump. It was basically an Aamir Khan film; it needn’t have a history behind it. So, what Aamir took from Forrest Gump as subject matter might not have piqued the interest of the audience. But all these are speculations, by the way,” he added.

Scripted by actor-screenwriter Atul Kulkarni, Laal Singh Chaddha also featured Naga Chaitanya, Mona Singh, and Manav Vij in key roles. Mounted at an approximate budget of Rs 180 crore, Laal Singh Chaddha also ended up becoming a major box office bomb, grossing just Rs 133.5 crore worldwide.

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