Javed Akhtar wants Sunny Deol starrer 'Arjun' to be remade

Mumbai: Javed Akhtar, whose scripts for Sholay and Zanjeer, co-written with Salim Khan were mauled in remakes by Ram Gopal Varma and Apoorva Lakhia respectively, is not opposed to remakes per se. In fact Salim and Javed once remade a 1959 film called Do Ustad in 1974 as Haath Ki Safaai. Explains Javed, “I can understand Basu Chatterjee fuming over the remakes of his films. He or Sai Paranjpye have made classics, so why fool around with them?On the other hand some other films have reason to be remade. Hota kya hai with time some classics with the passage of time it could be given a new interpretation.A filmmaker may have seen a film 30 years ago, which he loves and he might feel he could give that subject a more technologically advanced twist than what was done to it earlier. A writer may feel that he could tweak certain aspects of an old script . No harm in that. But I feel certain classics are sacrosanct and inviolable. You can’t remake Sholay, Mughal-e-Azam or Gone With The Wind Or Ben Hur. No one should dare to tamper with these classics because this scripts couldn’t be carried any further. But there are other films that can be improved on. Martin Scorcese, who is one of the most respected directors in the world remade the 1962 classic Cape Fear very successfully. Scorcese got his first Oscar for best director for a remake The Departed.” [caption id=“attachment_2522156” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Javed Akhtar. AFP[/caption] Ask Javed which films he’d like to see remade and he promptly says, “I’d like to see my Arjun remade.I feel I had made some mistakes in the second-half and somewhere I am aware of those mistakes. If it is remade I’d correct those mistakes.Our film Haath Ki Safaai was based on a 1959 film called Do Ustad which starred Raj Kapoor and Sheikh Mukhtar. Salim Saab and I saw Do Ustad and we sensed the potential in the plot that was lost in translation . Ibrahim Nadiadwala bought the rights of Do Ustad and we remade it as Haath Ki Safaai. And let me tell you Haath Ki Safaai was a hundred times better film although Do Ustad had such a fine actor like Raj Kapoor and we had to make do with Randhir Kapoor.”