Before the new millennium when just Doordarshan, Film Magazines and Newspapers were the only possible means of communicating with the viewers as well as within the industry itself, there were several instances of two films being made on an almost similar subject or storyline simultaneously. Their release dates used to become a major controversial issue in order to reach the audience first and the print media had a gala time talking about the same in their regular issues.
As the most famous example of such films one recalls Amitabh Bachchan’s INQUILAAB and Rajesh Khanna’s AAJ KAA M.L.A RAM AVATAR in 1984, based on the subject of a common man turning into a key politician. Both the films were remake of their South original and had their own controversial issues concerned with the bold climax sequence and the title respectively.
The other instance had Amitabh playing the role of a magician in both
TOOFAN and
JAADUGAR being made at the same time around 1989. A lot of bitterness and cracks in relationships was the result of this strange co-incidence. And again both these films didn’t work at the box office like the two mentioned above.
Many more similar cases were there in the 90s too like PARAMPARA/KSHATRIYA and DARR/ANJAAM in 1993-94. A very weird situation was witnessed when more than 3 films were made on the life of Shaheed Bhagat Singh in 2002 probably as a result of ego-clashes.
However its pretty strange that the same kind of instances are seen in the present well connected era of social networking and instant connectivity too, wherein loads of information is available just on the finger tips. Moreover it’s nothing short of an important case-study that how it still gets possible when there are very few (secretive) individual producers but all reputed production houses duly announcing their future projects in the trade circles.
Anyway it somehow still goes on and we once again see two almost similar films releasing at the gap of just a few weeks.
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More than a month back we had
Raveena Tandon’s MAATR and
Sridevi’s MOM made on an exactly similar story progression and characterisation too, revolving around a young girl’s mother who kills her daughter’s rapists and murderers one by one making a strategy of her own. Incidentally
Sanjay Dutt’s upcoming
BHOOMI also has an identical premise of revenge taken by the father (with gender changed).
QAIDI BAND and LUCKNOW CENTRAL are the latest example having exactly similar plot of a musical band being formed within the jail inmates. And both are again being released at a gap of just couple of weeks.
Wonder how such absurd instances are still continuing in the present resulting in mutual losses!
(The article was also featured in UC-News Mobile App in September 2017)
Tags :
Why are we making two almost similar films simultaneously even in this well-connected era, Articles on Cinema by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com, Controversies of almost similar films releasing simultaneously.
