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Old-age Bollywood is an era where a lot happened and was never revealed. Most of the stories were slid under covers, and many of them were shared and remembered in memories but weren’t published ever. One such story happened on one of the elaborate sets of Subhash Ghai’s film that starred Amitabh Bachchan in the lead.
The angry young man was the muse for the showman of the industry, and they were working on a film titled Devaa. The shoot began in 1987. The film also starred Raaj Kumar, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Shammi Kapoor, and Ila Arun, and the music was given by Laxmikant Pyarelal. However, the film was eventually shelved. Guess why? Because of Big B, cheating Ghai and their regular ego-clashes.
A report in IMDb trivia quoted that Subhash Ghai was suspicious of Amitabh Bachchan lying and not being professional with his film. This unprofessionalism started with arriving late on sets, calling fake sick leaves, and leaving the set early, citing health reasons. The website quoted, “Amitabh would promise to make up for the missed time the next day but would back out from his promise.”
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However, later, the producer Habib Nadiadwala used to call Subhash Ghai and yell at him for making Amitabh shoot while he was sick. The Khalnayak director also did not have access to the superstar directly. In fact, he always had to go through his personal assistant and manager, which was uncalled for.
Eventually, Subhash Ghai realized that Amitabh Bachchan wasn’t properly concentrating on Devaa and canceled the dates for the film, and accommodated other shoots. It was then that the director decided to put his foot down. Quoting a report by IMDb trivia, “Subhash stated that Amitabh canceled some dates and had given them to other producers. He would not have minded but felt Amitabh was not being fully honest. Subhash felt a certain distance from Amitabh and felt they did not bond well. He needed a family-like atmosphere and finally flew down to Madras, where Amitabh was shooting for Shahenshah and broke the news of shelving Devaa. Amitabh felt that maybe Ghai was shelving the film due to the Bofors scandal. However, Ghai denied this and confessed he was going through a lot of stress while shooting the film.”
However, while the two had a showdown with Amitabh Bachchan, who was not happy with Subhash Ghai’s working style and his attitude, guess who entered the picture and milked this situation to the maximum? It was none other than Boney Kapoor. The filmmaker kept advising Subhash Ghai that Devaa would be too expensive a film and would not recover its money. He further advised him to start shooting for Ram Lakhan with Anil Kapoor as that would be a better film financially.
Ram Lakhan turned out to be the second blockbuster of Anil Kapoor‘s career after Tezaab. The film was released in 1989 and collected almost 9 crore at the box office. It was the second-highest-grossing film of the year.
For more such throwbacks, stay tuned to Koimoi.
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