Sholay shouldn't be remade!

Shah Rukh Khan with Farhan Akhtar

Ram Gopal Varma certainly won't appreciate this. But according to Farhan Akhtar, Sholay is a film that cannot be remade. Says Farhan, "Sholay has already been done to perfection. Don didn't happen overnight. It's an idea I was sitting on for a long time.

As much as I love the other classics from my growing years, like Sholay and Deewar, Don was extra-special. It's not as if I found Don to be a film that needed any kind of improvement. It's just that I felt it was something that could render itself well to a contemporary adaptation."

Hrithik not Don

Farhan thinks Sholay doesn't need a new adaptation. "To this day, it looks as fresh as it did earlier. Full credit to Mr Ramesh Sippy, the writers (Salim-Javed) and the cast for making it a complete and timeless classic. But Don lends itself to a new interpretation. When you see how it's turned out, you'll know why I did a new take."

A report that Don was first offered to Hrithik Roshan, has Farhan flustered. Immersed in post-production work and hurtling towards a Diwali deadline, Farhan says, "That was really weird. The facts have been strangely distorted. I had a wonderful experience working with Hrithik in Lakshya. I was hopeful that we'd do my next movie together. Then I started writing Don. And the protagonist just became Shah Rukh Khan and no one else."

Ram Gopal Varma and Amitabh Bachchan

Visual treat

Since Don has loads of special effects, Shah Rukh's hi-jinks are bound to be compared to Hrithik's high jumps in Krissh. Farhan disagrees.

"There's an inherent difference between the FX in the two films. Krissh, being about a superhero, allows a lot of in-your-face visual effects. This film doesn't allow us that. The hero in Don is grounded to reality.

At times, the effects are so subtle that people may not even notice it." Surprisingly, Don isn't Farhan's most expensive film yet. "Don has been expensive for my producer, Ritesh Sidhwani, but not as expensive as Lakshya. We shot Don for four months in Malaysia with a crew of a hundred people. That couldn't be cheap. But still, Don is less expensive than Lakshya, which was shot extensively in Ladakh."

Paying homage

Talking about the special effects, Farhan says, "Red Chillies is the young, enthusiastic company that did the film's special effects. And they were all Don fans. In fact, we're all a group of Don and Amitabh Bachchan fans paying homage to the earlier film."

Extremely content with the way the film has shaped up, Farhan says, "My producer and I are very happy with what we've done with Don. And my music company, T-Series, is extremely upbeat about the sales of the music too."

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