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Don (1978)

Some interesting titbits about 'Don'
19th Oct 2006 22.15 IST
By Nikhil Kumar

Do you know the idea of remaking ‘Don’ was conceived when Farhan Akhtar was traveling in a train from Delhi to Dehradun. And he began writing the script with Hrithik Roshan in mind for the role of Don.

The D-Day has arrived. Farhan Akhtar’s modern take on Chandra Barot’s memorable movie Don (1978) is coming to the theatres. While the expectations from the film are obviously high, here we are presenting some interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits about the effort it took to remake a hit movie twenty-eight years after its release in the late 70s.

Farhan Akhtar was busy with his movie Lakshya when he first thought of remaking ‘Don’. He was traveling in a train and listening to a DJ album in which the music of ‘Don’ was used as a background score. That spurred Farhan’s imagination. As a child he was always “mesmerized” by Amitabh Bachchan ’s movie. As soon as he got off the train, Farhan shared the idea of remaking ‘Don’ with producer Ritesh Sidhwani. The rest, as they say, is history.

As soon as ‘Lakshya’ was over, Farhan began working on the script of Don . While he wanted his movie to be a tribute to the original, he also wanted to bring originality to the new ‘Don’. So he decided to change the film’s beginning and the end. Those portions of the screenplay he wrote himself.

In the beginning, Farhan thought of signing Hrithik Roshan for the coveted role of Don in the film. But as the script developed, Farhan says he realized that Shah Rukh Khan was most suited to play the role. Incidentally, it turned out that ‘Don’ was one of the favourite films of SRK also.

True to his style of filmmaking, Farhan was relentless during the making of ‘Don’. All the actors in the film underwent special martial arts training for their respective roles.

Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Arjun Rampal took extensive training under the guidance of experts from Shaolin Temple.

To shoot one particular scene in the film, SRK actually jumped from a height of 15,000 feet. The stunt was done under the guidance of Hollywood stunt expert Joe Jennings who has directed stunts for movies like ‘Charlie's Angels’, ‘XXX’ and ‘Air Force One’.

Priyanka Chopra too had to slog while training under Shaolin Temple expert Kanishk. During four months of shooting she was on a strict diet regimen and would work out everyday. She practiced a variety of action sequences like punches, kicks and jumps.

And Arjun Rampal learnt to fight with a cane. He plays Jasjit, a limping ex-convict in the film. His toughest part was walking on the top of the Petronas sky bridge.

Farhan Akhtar says his movie will take viewers on a different visual journey altogether. It has a lot of special effects. The film has been shot in Paris, Malaysia and India.

Looks like this ‘Don’ is going to be a helluva roller coaster ride.

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Don (1978)
Farhan Akhtar
Lakshya
Amitabh Bachchan
Don
Hrithik Roshan
Shah Rukh Khan
Priyanka Chopra
Arjun Rampal