Filmmaker Priyadarshan is currently shooting the Hindi film Haiwaan with Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan. The movie is a remake of the Malayalam film Oppam, starring Mohanlal in the lead. Priyadarshan has remade several Malayalam films into Hindi over the years and found success with many of them. He will also be returning to the Hera Pheri franchise to direct the third installment, which will reunite its lead cast, including Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, and Paresh Rawal.
Priyadarshan on remakes
In a recent interaction with Pinkvilla, Priyadarshan explained his approach to remakes, “I never show the original film to the actor. I made this mistake a couple of times when I was remaking Malayalam films in Telugu. I showed Mohanlal’s films to actors, and they tried to imitate him.” He said he reshapes the script of remakes to suit the performers.
The senior filmmaker also discussed why most South-to-Hindi remakes fail at the box office, “Ninety percent of remakes are flops because many South films, when remade in Hindi, still look like South films; they don’t feel like Hindi films,” he said. Noting the success of Manichitrathazhu and its Hindi version Bhool Bhulaiyaa, he observed that the latter succeeded because it catered to Hindi audiences’ sensibilities.
Truth about Hera Pheri remake
Priyadarshan added that he rarely copies films exactly, but Hera Pheri was an exception. “I never copy the same film, except one film which was made frame-to-frame — the same as the original — and that was Hera Pheri. Nobody wrote the dialogues in Hindi for that film; they were all translated.” The cult comedy was adapted from the 1989 Malayalam hit Ramji Rao Speaking, directed by Siddique–Lal.
In the same interview, Priyadarshan also revealed that he was forced to take Paresh Rawal for the role in Hungama. Priyadarshan revealed that he wanted Amitabh Bachchan in Paresh’s role in Hungama and said, “So, once I was planning to make Hungama, I was thinking to approach Amit ji for the role of Paresh Rawal in that, he would have done magic. Of course, Paresh did well. But then he (Amitabh) fell sick, he was not well, so I was forced to take Paresh.”
