New Delhi. Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has been active in the Bollywood industry for the last 5 decades. People are still impressed by his powerful acting. Even at the age of 81, Big B surprises his fans with his brilliant performance. ‘Zanjeer’ released in 1973 proved to be a game changer for Amitabh Bachchan’s career. After this, he never looked back. Surprisingly, ‘Zanjeer’ was rejected by many top stars of that era. Even the heroines were not ready to work in the film.
The story of Amitabh Bachchan’s superhit ‘Zanjeer’ was written by the duo Salim-Javed (Salim Khan-Javed Akhtar). Recently, a documentary series ‘Young Angry Men’ based on the career of both the writers has been released on Amazon Prime Video, in which Salim-Javed made many revelations related to their film ‘Zanjeer’.
‘Zanjeer’ became a game changer for the film industry
During a conversation with Farah Khan, Salim Khan said, ‘Zanjeer is a game changer film. Before that, films used to have songs and comedy. So people initially did not understand what we were trying to do with our films, because there was no song or comedy in them. When we narrated the story to a producer, he told us that his two and a half hours were wasted.’
(Amitabh Bachchan’s film Zanjeer was released in 1973.)
Most rejected films became superhits
When Farah Khan asked how many times the film Zanjeer was rejected, Salim Khan replied, “Many times”. Then Javed Akhtar said, “The amazing thing is that only those films of ours that were rejected the most have become superhits.”
Heroine was not available for ‘Zanjeer’
After this Salim Khan said, ‘Dilip sahab (Dilip Kumar), Dharmendra, Rajkumar, everyone rejected the film. We were not getting any hero. Even the heroines were not showing any interest in the film.’ Javed Akhtar further said, ‘When we signed Amitabh Bachchan, we were not getting a heroine. First we were not getting a hero and after Amitabh we were not getting a heroine. No heroine wanted to work in our film.’
Rajesh Khanna’s career was at its peak
Javed Akhtar said, ‘When I look back, I am not surprised at all why our film was getting rejected. That was Rajesh Khanna’s peak period. Laxmikant and RD Burman’s music was superhit. In that era, two men were roaming around with such scripts in which the hero neither sings a song, nor romances, nor smiles, nor does comedy, in that era. So why would anyone work in it? But only that film will be super-duperhit which will be out of the current trends.’ Finally, Jaya Bachchan agreed to work in ‘Zanjeer’.
Amitabh Bachchan’s work front
Talking about the work front, Amitabh Bachchan became famous by playing the character of Ashwatthama in the previous film ‘Kalki 2898 AD’. The film did a tremendous business of Rs 1100 crore worldwide. Amitabh Bachchan’s acting was highly praised in ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ directed by Nag Ashwin. Now Amitabh Bachchan will be seen in Rajinikanth’s film Vettaiyan. This movie will hit the theaters on October 10, 2024 this year.
Tags: Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood films, Entertainment news., javed akhtar, salim khan
FIRST PUBLISHED : August 23, 2024, 20:26 IST
