Shah Rukh Khan rejected the earlier version of Farah Khan’s Happy New Year, she feels Dunki looks similar: ‘SRK said I’m too old for this’

After having successful films like Pathaan and Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan is now looking forward to his next film Dunki, which is being directed by Rajkumar Hirani. The first teaser of the film gives a sneak peek into the film’s plot which is about a few people who want to move to the US and now, Farah Khan has revealed that she had pitched a similar script to Shah Rukh Khan a few years ago that he had rejected because he felt he was “too old” to play the role.

Farah, in a chat with Bharti Singh and Haarsh Limbachiyaa, shared that she was quite shocked to see the promo of Dunki as this story was very similar to her earlier version of Happy New Year, “which Shah Rukh did not like”. She shared, “I wrote a version of Happy New Year that Shah Rukh did not like. It is very strange because now I’m watching the promo of Dunki… That Happy New Year was about 4 boys who want to go to America and be tadipaar and the only way they want to do it is if they take part in a dance competition because the finals are in Las Vegas,” she recalled.

Dunki’s promo implied that the film was about a group of people who want to move to the US, even if it requires them to take illegal means.

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Farah said that Shah Rukh did not like this version and recalled, “Then Shah Rukh said ‘I will look too old, I’m too old to play this young boy’.” She implied that this version was way too similar to Dunki. It has also been speculated online that Dunki is a different version of Munna Bhai Chale America, the third part of the franchise that was supposed to be made with Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi, but never took off.

Happy New Year ultimately ended up being a heist movie which also starred Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Sonu Sood, Boman Irani, Vivaah Shah among others.