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Mehul Kumar recalled when a producer from the south wanted to remake Mughal-e-Azam and wanted to include the Bachchan family: Amitabh Bachchan as Akbar, Abhishek as Salim, Jaya as Jodha Bai and Aishwarya Rai as Anarkali.
When Prithviraj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar played Emperor Akbar and Salim in the 1960 film Mughal-e-Azam, They set a benchmark for toxic parent-child relationships, Bollywood has been trying to emulate that dynamic ever since. So when a producer from the south decided to remake one of the biggest Indian films of all time, he thought a film of such scale deserved major recognition. So he came up with the idea of casting all members of the Bachchan family in this period family drama.
In a recent interview, Filmmaker Mehul Kumar Mehul Kumar recalled the incident when a renowned producer from the south called him to discuss the proposal. Speaking to Bollywood Thikana, Mehul Kumar recalled, “Once, a big producer from the south called me and said that we want to remake Mughal-e-Azam and we want to cast Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya ji, Aishwarya and Abhishek. They made a proposal.” Mehul Kumar did not name the producer but said that they wanted to cast Amitabh Bachchan as Emperor Akbar, Jaya Bachchan as Jodha Bai, Abhishek Bachchan as Salim and Aishwarya Rai as Anarkali.
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When Mehul asked the producer if they had spoken to Bachchan about it, he was told that the veteran actor had asked him to speak to Mehul first. “I told them that Mughal-e-Azam cannot be remade. You are making a proposal, but this proposal will not work because people will compare it with the original film. Because that was a historical film. He then called Amit ji and told him that this is what Mehul Kumar said. Amit ji said that Mehul said the right thing,” he shared. K Asif’s original film starred Madhubala, Dilip Kumar and Prithviraj Kapoor.
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Mehul Kumar supported Amitabh Bachchan in the 1990s when the actor was trying to make a comeback in films. He made the 1997 film Mrityudaata for the actor but it failed to perform at the box office. Speaking to Friday Talkies’ YouTube channel, Mehul shared that Amitabh asked him for a “garma-garam” script when he was struggling in films. He shared, “It was at the music launch of Rangeela, Amit ji was also there. He met me and asked, ‘Sir, aapke paas koi garma-garam hai?’ I asked him, ‘For whom?’ He replied, ‘For me, who else?’ I wasn’t doing films at that time and I told him that I had something for him. The next day, I got a call from his office, following his request. We set up a meeting and I narrated the film to him. He liked it and said that he was going to do it.”
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First uploaded on: 2024-07-23 at 11:57 IST
