This Amitabh Bachchan film was major flop, fans tore seats in anger, superstar had to re-dub movie, later it became...

Written By Simran Singh | Updated: Oct 31, 2024, 05:40 PM IST

Amitabh Bachchan

Interestingly, this movie was a major commerical flop, yet Amitabh Bachchan won a National Award for it, and later the movie became a cult classic in the gangster drama genre.

Amitabh Bachchan has been part of several iconic blockbusters that are regarded as classics. However, one of the iconic films was a big commercial failure, that actually 'broke the producer's heart' as well. This film was inspired by a cult Hollywood blockbuster, and it was considered to break box office records. However, when the movie was released, Big B's furious fans broke the theatre seats, and they slammed the film. 

Though the movie was a flop, Bachchan won the Best Actor National Award for his performance, and in the following years, it became one of the most celebrated gangster dramas. Yes, we're talking about Agneepath. 

Yash Johar's production, Mukul Anand-directed Agneepath was inspired by Al Pacino's Scarface, and it also borrowed elements from The Godfather Part II. The movie also starred Danny Denzongpa, Mithun Chakraborty, Neelam, Tinnu Anand, Archana Puran Singh, and Rohini Hattangadi in key roles. 

Fans tore theatre seats during Agneepath 

In a recent episode of KBC, Amitabh Bachchan revealed why he had to re-dub his film. While hosting a special episode with Citadel: Honey Bunny team- Raj & DK with Varun Dhawan, Bachchan revealed why he had to re-record Vijay's powerful dialogues. The actor shared this interesting anecdote after Varun Dhawan expressed his admiration for his outhandling performance in the film Agneepath.

Replying to this, the veteran actor said, “I’ll tell you a fact, some things are unplanned. On the first day of shooting, I still hadn’t figured out how to portray him. I was in the makeup room and called Mukul Anand and suggested giving Vijay a distinct, deep voice. He agreed, and that’s how we decided on it.”

Amitabh went on to add, “There was a man who used to visit Kalyanji-Anandji’s home with a similar heavy tone, so I thought, why not model Vijay’s voice after that? Later, I found out that man came from an underground background, which fit the essence of Vijay’s character perfectly. So, the character’s first shot was inspired by him. When the movie released, though, the producer called to say theatres were having issues. Audiences were tearing up seats and telling the sound department, ‘This doesn’t sound like Amitabh; fix the sound system!’ So, to address it, I had to re-dub the whole film in my normal voice. But that initial voice was very impactful.”

Agneepath was a flop, but its remake was a blockbuster 

The original Agneepath failed at the box office. Decades later, Karan Johar produced a remake of Agneepath with Hrithik Roshan and Sanjay Dutt. The remake was released in cinemas on 2012, and it became a massive blockbuster. 

(With inputs from IANS)

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