While many star kids give up on their dreams of carrying their parent's legacy forward after a series of flops, there is one actor, who gave 15 continuous flops, but still became a superstar. The actor we are talking about was banned by Bollywood, however, upon his return, he went on to break box office records and earned Rs 3000 crore with his films. He is Sanjay Dutt, the actor who succeeded as a hero as well as a villain.
Sanjay Dutt is the son of superstar Sunil Dutt. He started his career as a child artiste and made his debut as a hero alongside Tina Ambani in the movie Rocky. The film became a huge success. This was followed by a series of box office flops but soon in 1986, Mahesh Bhatt’s film Naam became a turning point in his career.
He then gave hits like Saajan, Khalnayak, Vaastav: The Reality, Jodi No. 1, Haseena Maam Jaayegi and more. However, in 1993, he got arrested in MCOCA and went to jail. Vidhu Vinod Chopra revealed in an interview how Sanjay was then banned from Bollywood. He said, “Sanjay Dutt went to jail. I didn’t know him at all. The whole industry banned him, but I thought this was very wrong, so I went to his house and announced a film with him. His father said that I’ll be banned as well, but I said, ‘I don’t care’.”
When Sanjay Dutt came out of jail, he called Vidhu Vinod Chopra who then offered him Jimmy Shergill’s role in Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. Sanjay Dutt agreed, but after Shah Rukh Khan rejected the film, the producer offered Sanjay Dutt the lead role and it became a blockbuster.
However, after this, Sanjay Dutt gave 15 back-to-back flops between 2003-2006. From LOC Kargil, Plan, Rudraksh, Rakht, Musafir to Shaadi no. 1, Shabd and Anthony Kaun Hai? All of these films flopped at the box office. He made a successful comeback at the box office with Lage Raho Munna Bhai. He then turned to negative roles with Agneepath.
In 2020, as he was on his comeback trail, Dutt was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. He underwent treatment in Mumbai and recovered. When he was undergoing treatment for cancer, he signed his first Kannada film – KGF Chapter 2, in which he played the antagonist Adheera. In 2022, the film was released in theatres and broke all box office records, grossing Rs 1200 crore worldwide. He followed it up with a cameo in Jawan in 2023 and another negative role in the Tamil film Leo. Together, the three films grossed almost Rs 3000 crore, making Dutt’s comeback a grand one
