Don 3 with Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan is not happening

To all those who ever loved the Don franchise —and I wasn’t one of them—there is bad news. There is no Don 3 happening in the near future, and certainly not with Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan in the lead. Why would they come together to do Don again? It would be like Dilip Kumar and Shah Rukh Khan doing Devdas Part 2.

There is no connection between the two Dons that are separated by several generations. AB’s Don came in 1978. I was speaking to Mr Bachchan about the success of Don and he described it as “freak” hit.

That, it is. Don was made back then at a budget of 84 lakh rupees; it has accrued nearly Rs 400 crores worldwide to date. It was a script that had been rejected by Dharmendra and Dev Anand . Salim-Javed offered it to director Chandra Barot who was at that time assisting Manoj Kumar . During the making of Manoj Kumar’s _Roti Kapada Aur Makaa_n , Chandra Barot (who incidentally is the younger brother of singer Kamal Barot who sang the evergreen Hansta hua noorani chehra with Lata Mangeshkar) became friendly with Amitabh Bachchan and Zeenat Aman who were a part of the cast in Roti Kapada Aur Makaan.

AB, ZA and Barot decided to make a film together. That’s how Don was born. Interestingly the film’s biggest USP, the song Khaike paan banaras wala was originally composed by Kalyanji-Anandji for the Dev Anand starrer Banarsi Babu . But Dev, with his urban image, didn’t feel comfortable doing the earthy rustic rhythms of Khai ke paan banaras wala. He passed.

Can one imagine the original Don without Khaike paan banaraswala? It would like paan without choona, paan intended.Or can we imagine Farhan Akhtar ’s remake of Don without Priyanka Chopra playing Roma? If Don 3 ever gets made, Priyanka cannot be part of it. Why? Because Shah Rukh Khan doesn’t work with Priyanka Chopra.

Don’t ask why. And really, I wonder if Priyanka Chopra would be interested in doing another Don film! No-one associated with the film is keen, I can tell you that. Farhan Akhtar who directed the Don remake in 2006, went on to direct a Don sequel in 2011, in 3D if you please, which amounted to making Ganga Jamuna in Bhojpuri. As a work consciously trying to extend a remake into a franchise. Farhan’s Don 2 made no sense to me.

Nonetheless, Farhan’s Don 2 was better than his first Don which I had described in my review as an unbearably arrogant film. Arrogant cinema is one where the filmmaker assumes a position of superiority over the given work. Farhan’s Don wasn’t just a revisionist version of a superhit film. It tried to create a new ethos and a new spirit for the original source material. It was not a remake but a remix, where the artiste doesn’t recreate a work of art as a tribute, but tells you, ‘This is the way it ought to have been. Now just see what I’ve done.‘The spirit of a chic but clinical remix persisted throughout the film, even in the song Khaike paas Banaraswala where Javed Akhtar changed the entire opening prelude written originally by Anjaan.

More alarming was the end-twist that turned Salim-Javed ’s original 1978 screenplay on its head… But left many questions unanswered.

I feel betrayed by Farhan Akhtar’s Don. He promised me a fun film. Don was, if anything, a seriously humourless tribute, that took away the fun element from the original, and that took itself far more seriously than the original material suggested or warranted.

I rate Farhan among the most accomplished filmmakers of the post-Mukul Anand era. I saw the technician at his polished pinnacle in Don. But the storyteller was too busy measuring his steps to enjoy the journey from trigger to rigour.

Still, it was better than Farhan’s Don 2 which was like a dip into icy-cold waters which leaves every limb numbed and frozen.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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