Mumbai: He believes in remakes and will make them all his life, says Aamir Khan, whose last film Laal Singh Chaddha was an official adaptation of Forrest Gump and latest Sitaare Zameen Par has been trolled for being a remake of Spanish movie Campeones.
The star and filmmaker said he has done over 10 remakes and they have all been superhits except for Laal Singh Chaddha.
“Like, Ghajini or if I’ve to start from the beginning of my career then Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, which is a remake of Romeo and Juliet. So, I have never had a problem till date in remaking because for me, it is a new canvas,” Aamir said in a group interview in response to a question from PTI.
“I believe in remakes and I will do it all my life. Whenever I get a good remake, I will do it. Why shouldn’t I do it? If you don’t want to see it, then don’t see it. It’s your choice. My choice is to do it, your choice is to watch it,” he added.
Why is Shakespeare respected so much even today, Aamir asked about the playwright whose work has been endlessly adapted in cinema, theatre and other art forms.
“He is gone, write your own play. Why are you doing ‘Hamlet’ again? Why do you want to say, ‘To be or not to be’? The chatter about remakes, I don’t know where it came from… Now suddenly, some trolls have launched it.
“Some of our biggest hits have been remakes. If a cut and paste is so easy to do, then you do it, it’s just a cut and paste. But it’s not a cut and paste thing, you’ve to put your life into it,” he added.
Aamir said he’s not the only one doing remakes. Many in Hindi cinema, including the great screenwriting duo of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, have adapted stories in their career.
“I’ve seen this beautiful film, which is made in Spanish. Are you going to watch a Spanish film? I don’t think you have ever seen a Spanish film in India, you must have seen one or two. But by and large, we don’t watch it,” he said.
What is needed is sensitisation for all.
Spanish audiences liked “Campeones” (“Champions in its Hollywood version) and understood its message about neurodivergence, which refers to differences in mental or neurological functioning from what is typically considered the norm. And that is something he wants to achieve with Sitaare Zameen Par, the film he has produced and acted in.
“We should also be sensitised. We should also move forward, and that the topic of neurodivergence should become important for us too. In our country too, there should be a public discourse on it — what is neurotypical and how we should behave? This is a very important topic for India. I’m very clear I have done the right thing.”
Sitaare Zameen Par, directed by R. S. Prasanna, features Aamir as Gulshan, an assistant coach of major basketball team. After being fired from his job, he is ordered to either go to jail or do 90 days of community service as the coach of a team of specially-abled basketball players.
The movie, which releases June 20, comes three years after Laal Singh Chaddha that tanked at the box office when it was released in theatres in August 2022.
At the time, the movie faced calls for boycott on social media with hashtags #boycottlaalsinghchaddha and #boycottbollywood garnering tens of thousands of posts on X.
“You work so hard, and then a person is saying something wrong just because of negativity. He has neither seen the film nor does he know about the topic, you just have to be negative. So, whatever you say, that person will speak negatively. So that is the meaning of trolling. Troll is not an angel. We don’t call them angels. We call them trolls,” he said.
However, the actor dismissed the notion that online trolling has an effect on a movie’s box office performance.
“There was a lot of trolling in Laal Singh Chadha. Maybe people think that it didn’t work because of trolling. They are absolutely wrong. Imagine if the same trolling was there during 3 Idiots, what do you think would have happened? Then the trolling doesn’t work. Why? Because the film is good.”
Laal Singh Chaddha didn’t work at the box office because it was not made well, Aamir stressed.
“It couldn’t touch the hearts of people. If Dangal had released on the same day in place of Laal Singh Chaddha, it would still have been a super hit. So, trolling didn’t make a difference. The film was weak so it couldn’t sustain. If the film was good, it would have gone up. So, I’m not disturbed by trolling, I don’t have any tension. The film should be good,” he added.
The actor said he has read the social media comments on Sitaare Zameen Par and is able to figure where the post is coming from.
“I know about the troll in a second as they write, ‘Boycott, boycott’ or ‘Go to Pakistan’, so I understood it’s a troll… That reaction doesn’t affect me at all. I want to listen to the real audience, who are neither a troll nor anything, they see your work and they either like it or they don’t like it. If they like or dislike it, they say it from their heart. So, I’m bothered by the reactions of the real audience for whom I make films. I don’t care about the reaction of the trolls.”
