After Dharmendra was forced to leave Zanjeer, the film was offered to several superstars such as Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna, Dilip Kumar, and Raaj Kumar. Eventually, Amitabh Bachchan was signed and the blockbuster film changed his life.
Directed by Prakash Mehra, the 1973 action crime drama Zanjeer starred Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Pran, and Ajit Khan in the leading roles. After seeing many failures in the early 1970s, Amitabh had also decided to leave Mumbai and go back to his hometown Allahabad (now known as Prayagraj) when he was offered Zanjeer. The film, which turned out to be a blockbuster success, established Amitabh's image as the Angry Young Man and changed his life.
But before Big B, many actors had rejected Zanjeer. In fact, Dharmendra revealed an interesting anecdote on Aap Ki Adalat in 2018 on how he lost the film due to his cousin sister. The Haqeeqat actor shared that he had bought the film's script from Salim Khan (Salman Khan's father) for Rs 17,500 and had decided to make the film himself. When he was doing the 1972 film Samadhi with Prakash Mehra, he shared the script with the director.
After going through the same, Prakash insisted Dharmendra to let him make the film, and the actor agreed. But, Dharmendra's cousin sister had a feud with Mehra and she gave a promise to the actor not to work with the director. The actor couldn't say no to his sister, and thus Prakash was left with Salim's script with no actors attached to the project. The director then approached Rajesh Khanna, Dilip Kumar, Raaj Kumar and Dev Anand but all of them refused the film. Prakash finally signed up Amitabh Bachchan, and the film hit the screens on May 11, 1973.
Not just in India, the action crime drama turned out to be a blockbuster in Soviet Union as well. The film earned Rs 6 crore gross in India and Rs 11 crore gross from Soviet Union, and its worldwide gross earnings were Rs 17.46 crore. After Zanjeer, Amitabh Bachchan never looked back and became one of the biggest superstars in the history of Indian cinema.
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 "Dharmendra had bought Zanjeer script from Salim Khan")
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