The year 2001 ushered in not only a new millennium, but also a whole new wave of Hindi cinema. That year offered a diverse range of cinematic offerings, and all of them turned out to be blockbusters at the box office. The first batch of these seminal films arrived on this day, June 15, 25 years ago with the epic clash between Ashutosh Gowariker’s period sports drama Lagaan, starring Aamir Khan, and Anil Sharma’s cross-border action romance Gadar, starring Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel.
However, the clash wasn’t the focus for Ashutosh Gowariker, who invested all his energies and bet all his chances on Lagaan. Starting his career as an actor in shows like Circus (1989) and films like Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (1994), Gowariker finally made his directorial debut with the 1993 thriller Pehla Nasha, starring Deepak Tijori, Pooja Bhatt, and Raveena Tandon.
However, despite cameos by his Holi (1984) co-star Aamir Khan and his Circus co-star Shah Rukh Khan, among others, Pehla Nasha failed at the box office. Gowariker followed it up with the 1995 action thriller Baazi, headlined by Aamir, and co-written by him and Neeraj Vora. But that movie also failed to make a mark at the box office.
So, in the late 1990s, Ashutosh Gowariker chose to take a huge risk with his third directorial Lagaan, a film he recently told SCREEN could have ended up being his last if it had failed. “I was not in that comparative space at all, about who are the other filmmakers and what they are making. I had to get it right for myself because I was coming on the wake of two of my films not working before that. This was my third and only chance,” confessed Gowariker.
“I’d also decided that if I don’t make it as a director with this one, then I wouldn’t direct at all. So, my entire focus was only on getting that story right,” added the filmmaker. However, contrary to trade and industry expectations, Lagaan not only emerged as a blockbuster, amassing over Rs 65 crore at the worldwide box office, but was also nominated in the Best Foreign Film category at the Academy Awards in 2002.
Aamir Khan’s Lagaan was the last Indian film to be nominated in the Best International Feature category at the Academy Awards.
Had that not been the case, Ashutosh Gowariker would’ve probably hung up his boots, and not directed the seminal films he’s known for today, including Shah Rukh-starrer Swades (2004) and Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai-starrer period romance Jodhaa Akbar (2008). Initially, even Aamir Khan wasn’t convinced of the idea of Gowariker helming a period sports drama like Lagaan, set in a village.
Aamir even warned his longtime friend and collaborator to pull up his socks, since he had already delivered two flops as a director. However, Gowariker spent three months writing a detailed screenplay of Lagaan, and narrated it to a guilt-stricken Aamir. The way he introduced each character in the film, Aamir was bowled over by Gowariker’s vision.
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Eventually, Aamir decided to not only play the protagonist Bhuvan, but also turn producer with the film, which led to the launch of Aamir Khan Productions. No other producer was ready to invest Rs 25 crore in the film that was considered a gamble, even by the likes of veteran screenwriter Javed Akhtar, who also wrote the lyrics of the film’s soundtrack.
2001 — the year that changed Hindi cinema
Lagaan clashed with Gadar, also a patriotic drama, which turned out to be an even bigger hit, amassing over Rs 130 crore at the worldwide box office. Interestingly, 25 years later, Aamir Khan has joined forces with Sunny Deol for another patriotic film, Rajkumar Santoshi’s period drama Batwara, which is backed by Aamir Khan Productions and slated to release in cinemas on August 14 on the eve of Independence Day.
The Lagaan-Gadar clash was soon followed by the release of another seminal film, Farhan Akhtar’s directorial debut Dil Chahta Hai, starring Aamir, Saif Ali Khan, and Akshaye Khanna, among others. Another seminal gem followed with the release of Madhur Bhandarkar’s crime drama Chandni Bar, starring Tabu.
Watching all these pathbreaking films made Karan Johar doubt his filmmaking sensibilities. At the start of the year, he assumed he’d deliver 2001’s most notable film — family drama Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan, among others. Even though K3G eventually turned out to be the year’s biggest box office hit post its December release, Johar admitted the other four films released that year served as “a slap on my face“.
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However, Gowariker told SCREEN he wasn’t in that comparative space like Johar at the time, but agreed that 2001 indeed kicked off a new wave of Hindi cinema. “It happened to be a fantastic year. You had four other filmmakers creating their own films which were blockbusters in ideas, at the box office, and in thematic value. So, whether it’s Anil ji’s Gadar, Farhan’s Dil Chahta Hai, Madhur’s Chandni Bar, or even Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham — it’s the epitome of a family entertainer — I think it was a great year, especially because I was a part of the new wave of filmmakers that started that,” said Gowariker.
