Post-Sholay Ramu Is The Butt of All Jokes!
At last after occupying miles and miles of newsprint by sycophant-scribes all through its making, Ramgopal Varma’s Aag has bit the dust. In recent times no other film has perhaps received as much flak as Aag has. Poor Ramu will now think not once or twice but at least a hundred times before he sets out to make a remake once again, thanks to his bitter experience with Aag. Even Amul hoardings have not spared the poor guy. It says Ab Tera Kya Hoga Ramu?- Amul Ki Butter.
Ramu who had called me to watch his film Satya at a private trial a decade ago at least one month before its release because he was confident about his project, did not even bother to ask his p.r person to call me for the trial of Aag this time. My friends tell me that In should thank Ramu for not calling me to watch Aag because they had slept through the film even before the interval came. I thanked Geerish Wankhade, of Cinemax for not calling me to watch the premiere of the film Aag at Versova this time.
Besides Aag, the other remake of the week- Anant Mahadevan’s Victoria No. 203 also came and vanished from the turnstiles before you could even blink. Earlier last year Jyoti Prakash Dutta’s remake of Umrao Jaan had left him bleeding at the box office in spite of the presence of stars like Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, because people simply refuse to digest the new versions of the remakes. Phir Hera Pheri, Neeraj Vohra’s sequel to Priyadarshan’s Hera Pheri clicked because it was not a remake but a sequel to Hera Pheri, which in turn was the hit remake of the Malayalam hit Ramoji Rao Speaking.
One thing baffles me as far as Ramu is concerned. It is okay he wanted to call his film Ramgopal Varma’s Sholay when initially he had planned to make the remake of Sholay and the Sippys had raised a valid objection because he had not bought the rights from the Sippys who were naturally miffed. Why did he persist in calling his film Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag instead of calling it just Aag? The joke is that in the north a lot of people especially in the Bhojpuri belt went to watch the film presuming it is a action vendetta involving three heroes- Ajay Devgan, Prashant and Amitabh Bachchan playing the three characters Ram, Gopal and Verma but were disappointed.
Thank God that though PRO Raj Gandhi had announced almost two years ago that he was all set to launch the remake of Guru Dutt�s Chaudhvi Ka Chand with PRO Anusha Sameer Gill as the director, things did not progress since Ajay Devgan who Anusha thought of roping in for the project did not show keen interest in being a part of the remake of the legendary hit though the same Ajay could not say no to Ramu when Ramu had asked him to be part of his Sholay.
Pritish Nandy has now legally bought the rights from Sasha Sippy for remaking Sholay. How is Nandy going to remake Sholay now remains to be seen since he has not announced who the director is going to be and who the actors are who are going to play the legendary characters of Gabbar Singh, Veeru and Jai or for that matter Thakur. Pritish will have to think a hundred times before he embarks upon the launch of the remake though I feel he will be a winner when it comes to his animated version of Sholay because animation films are the order of the day and as such the animated version of Sholay will definitely be a big hit.
The joke circulating in the industry nowadays is that after watching his films like Aag and Darling, the cine-goers may revolt and tell Ramu Go. Incidentally Go is Ramu�s next release after Darling!