Age Of Remakes | Editor's Pen

Some of the gold diggers of 2011 were remakes/sequels. Singham, Don-2, Bodyguard, Ready. And now 2012 saw biggest opening ever with a remake- Agneepath. Looks like we have lost the proclivity to ape west and copy from our reserves. Though I was a little disturbed when Karan Johar announced remake of Agneepath, I am not against the trend. There is a saying that life traces its roots to Shakespeare. It means that every shade of life can be seen in plays and write-ups of Shakespeare. True, to a large extent.

While remaking an old film can make new generation watch a classic, it also gives a good opportunity to the maker to tell an omni-known story in a different way.  Farhan’s Don is a fine example where he made a slick thriller out of a cult movie. The other trend rocking the industry nowadays is to remake a popular/interesting movie made in regional language in Hindi which gets a wider audience. Three blockbusters of 2011 Bodyguard, Ready and Singham were originally made in Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil respectively. This year we will see lots of remakes and sequels but there are two names I am waiting for- Ek Diwana Tha and Bol Bachchan. Former is remake of Tamil Blockbuster Vinnaithandi Varuvaya and latter is remake of classic comedy Golmal (Amol Paleker and Utpal Dutt). Ek Diwana Tha is definitely in safe hands as Gautham Menon is himself remaking his Tamil movie. For Hindi cine-lovers, he is the same person who directed (rather remade) Rehna Hai Tere Dil Me with R. Madhavan and Diya Mirza. Given his track record, I will reserve my tickets in advance.

In Bollywood, money is the bottom line. When a good movie fails to make money, it affects the film maker. Sometime it hits bad. I can’t imagine how Anurag Kashyap would have felt after TGIYB failed to make a mark on BO. A decently made Sudhish Kamath’s Good Night Good Morning was bargaining for shows in multiplexes while sometime back people were tortured with movies like Double Dhamal and Rascals. No wonder, producers and makers want to recycle established products... at least bottom line is manageable. But is that desirable? Over to you...

Thanks

Sujoy Ghosh