Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar won't be able to remake 'Heer Ranjha', here's why

Remaking a classic is not a new trend in Bollywood. While some filmmakers are against the idea, many have jumped on the bandwagon and revisited old

Bollywood films. Farhan Akhtar belongs to the latter. He had taken up Chandra Barot’s Don and completely revamped it in contemporary style.

While the third instalment of Don is still awaited, Farhan’s sister Zoya Akhtar has been toying with the idea of remaking another vintage Hindi flick. Says a source, “Zoya wants to remake Heer Ranjha and modernise it. She, along with brother Farhan, showed a keen interest in making the film again.”

EMOTIONAL REASONS

While Farhan remade Don, which was written by his father Javed Akhtar and his then partner Salim Khan, Zoya, too, wants to invest in Heer Ranjha for emotional reasons. Our source tells us, “Heer Ranjha is possibly the only film in verse made till date. The dialogues were nothing but poetry. It was written by Kaifi Azmi, their step-mother Shabana Azmi’s father. They wanted to make it as a tribute to the legendary poet.”

NOT HAPPENING

But it seems Farhan and Zoya’s dream will remain just that. Our source explains, “The rights to the 1970 classic were with Chetan Anand and after his death, it’s now with his son Ketan Anand, who doesn’t want to part with the rights.” Ketan Anand tells us, “They didn’t request me personally. But people from Excel Entertainment, their company, got in touch with me. They approached me about five months ago. There was no personal communication with Farhan, Zoya, or Javed Akhtar. I turned them down right away.”

MONEY MATTERS

Our little birdie also informs us that the deal fell through because the monetary negotiations didn’t work out between the two parties. The source reveals, “Ketan quoted an exorbitant price to give them the rights of the film. He asked for `10 crore. Farhan and Zoya were willing to give him `1 crore, but he immediately refused.” Ketan confirms, “It’s true. I asked them for a really high price. I won’t tell you how much, but I did it purposely because I knew they will not agree to it. Tell me something, if I have a Mona Lisa, why would I sell it for anything less? I’m not going to sell it at their price so that they can earn their `100 crore.” When we reasoned that they wanted to pay homage to their great poet grandfather, he lost his cool. Anand, angrily responded, “Then, they should pay that much for their grandfather. I wanted to check how much I could stretch them. Kaifi Azmi was my father’s best friend and I have put a price on his work so they should feel happy about it. He deserves the price I’ve quoted. Why should I give in to them, just because they want to earn money out of something he did?”

ASLI BAAT

Another major reason why Ketan didn’t want to give Farhan and Zoya what they wanted was because he wants to remake the film himself. “I am interested in making it on my own, so I didn’t allow that negotiation to go through. We are already negotiating with a few investors and trying to understand how to approach the market, depending on what the financiers are interested in. My star is the subject and now, since it’s a content-driven industry, the season is right to come up with new people. Thakele logon se hum thak gaye hai. It will take a little time — six to seven months — but I will put it together,” he says. Anand adds, “We (the Anands) are the people who started this industry, so we have the right on things that we made. My father had tremendous guts to make a full film in poetry. No one stood by him at that time and it was the Punjab government that financed our film. Anybody who has the courage to remake something like that needs to have the courage to pay the price for it. If they want, they should create their own Heer Ranjha because they are talented. Why remake it?”