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When Prithviraj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar played Emperor Akbar and Salim in the 1960-film Mughal-e-Azam, they set a benchmark for toxic father-son relationships, and Bollywood has been trying to emulate that dynamic since then. So when a south producer decided to remake one of the biggest Indian films of all time, he thought that a film of such scale deserved a casting coup. So he came up with the idea of casting all members of the Bachchan family in this period family drama.
In a recent interview, filmmaker Mehul Kumar recalled the incident when a renowned south producer called him to discuss the proposal. Talking to Bollywood Thikana, Mehul Kumar recalled, “Once a big producer from south called me and said that we want to remake Mughal-e-Azam and we want to cast Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya ji, Aishwarya and Abhishek. They made a proposal.” Mehul Kumar did not name the producer but said that they wanted to cast Amitabh Bachchan as Emperor Akbar, Jaya Bachchan as Jodha Bai, Abhishek Bachchan as Salim and Aishwarya Rai as Anarkali.
When Mehul asked the producer if they had spoken to Bachchan about it, he was told that the veteran actor had asked him to speak to Mehul first. “I told them that Mughal-e-Azam can’t be remade. You are making a proposal but this proposal won’t fly because people will compare it with the original film. Because that one was such a historical film. He then called Amit ji that this is what Mehul Kumar has said. Amit ji said that Mehul is said the right thing,” he shared. The original film by K Asif starred Madhubala, Dilip Kumar and Prithviraj Kapoor.
Mehul Kumar supported Amitabh Bachchan in the 1990s when the actor was trying to make a comeback in movies. He made the 1997 film Mrityudaata for the actor but it did not work at the box office. Talking to Friday Talkies’ YouTube channel, Mehul shared that Amitabh asked him for a “garma-garam” script when he was struggling at the movies. He shared, “It was at the Rangeela music launch, Amit ji was there as well. He met me and asked, ‘Sir, aapke paas koi garma-garam hai?‘ I asked, ‘For whom?’ He replied, ‘For me, who else?’ He wasn’t doing films at the time, and I told him that I had something for him. The next day I get a call from his office, following up on his request. We arranged a meeting, and I narrated the film to him. He liked it, and said that he was going to do it.”
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