The era of remakes in Bollywood has been there for years, not just today. Apart from other languages, remakes of Hindi films have been made in Bollywood itself. Among such films, ‘Devdas’ comes to mind first. While Dilip Kumar was in the lead role in its first version, Shah Rukh Khan was in the remake. Both films got immense love from audiences and critics. Apart from this, there is another film whose brilliant remake was made, but the second one did not do well at all compared to the first version. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was in the lead role in this film. The film could not succeed despite a lot of expectations. Moreover, her husband Abhishek Bachchan was also seen romancing Aishwarya Rai while another Bollywood actor tried to ruin their lovestory.
The first adaptation was a hit
Written by poet and writer Mirza Hadi Ruswa in 1899, Umrao Jaan Ada is considered one of the finest novels in Urdu literature. The story revolves around a girl who is sold to a brothel as a child and becomes one of the most famous courtesans of Lucknow. The novel has inspired several film and television adaptations in both India and Pakistan. The two most talked about adaptations in India were one starring Rekha and the other had Aishwarya Rai as the lead heroine. In 2006, JP Dutta made ‘Umrao Jaan’ with Aishwarya Rai in the lead role. It also featured strong actors like Abhishek Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Suniel Shetty, Divya Dutta and Kulbhushan Kharbanda in important roles.
Priyanka was offered the film before Aishwarya
The former Miss World’s acting and JP Dutta’s direction were not liked by the audience and the film flopped at the box office. Made at a cost of Rs 15 crore, ‘Umrao Jaan’ became Aishwarya Rai’s biggest flop film. According to the Box Office India portal, it earned only Rs 7.42 crore in India. Before the release of ‘Umrao Jaan’, JP Dutta had revealed that Priyanka Chopra, not Aishwarya, was his first choice for this film. Talking to PTI in the year 2005, the director said, ‘I had reached a point where I had to take a decision. I wanted to work with Priyanka. I had seen her as Umrao Jaan. But we were at a dead end.’
Priyanka had clarified
He revealed that Priyanka had rejected the film due to her busy schedule. Priyanka also spoke on rejecting Umrao Jaan and told PTI, ‘I had many good projects before this role. JP Sahab wanted my dates for 90 days continuously, which I could not give him. When so much is happening.’
JP Dutta did not work for 12 years
JP Dutta made India’s best war drama film ‘Border’ in the year 1997. He was so disappointed with the failure of ‘Umrao Jaan’ that he postponed his next film ‘Paltan’ for 12 years. After staying away from films for 12 years, he made a comeback with this film in the year 2018. This war drama adorned with actors like Jackie Shroff, Arjun Rampal, Sonu Sood, Harshvardhan Rane, Sonal Chauhan and Esha Gupta was also rejected by the audience. JP Dutta is now working on ‘Border 2’. He has cast stars like Sunny Deol, Diljit Dosanjh and Varun Dhawan for this film.
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