Multi-Star Cast: A Genesis
iView Author: Satyendra Jha (Pune, India)
Email: satyendrajha30(at)gmail(dot)com
Multi-Star Cast: A Genesis
Perhaps one of the most eagerly awaited ‘events’ for the hardcore-commercial cine-buffs like me to get the ‘passion-for-cinema’ whipped up is the coming together of unusual pairings on screen. This pairing is not alluded necessarily to the male and female leads, but more for such actors who we would love to see together on screen. The end product may not match up to our expectations, and the experience of movie-watching may not be as fulfilling, but the mere wait from the day of announcement (at least till the time the movie is released) is an occasion to celebrate for many, and keeps the adrenaline in a constant rush.
Indian Cinema has had a history of ‘hero-worship’, and some of them are raised to the pedestal of demi-God. No wonder then, that any movie of such demi-God is considered as the biggest event of that year. Innumerable fan-clubs in every nook and cranny of our country (and even abroad) are a testimony to that. Now imagine any movie having another equally revered (OK, or maybe slightly less, just to give that additional ’screen time’ to the God) star playing a role alongside! Ek Ke Saath Ek Free…
The first real troika of stars India produced was of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand. Just a notch behind them, (strictly in terms of popularity) were Raj ‘Jaani’ Kumar and Rajendra ‘Jubilee’ Kumar. Even in those days 50’s and early 60’s, when any of these stars were capable on their own to give the movie a decent opening, people swooned when Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor came together in Andaaz, or Dilip Kumar and Raj Kumar came together in Paigham. Even Mother India had quite a “multi-star-cast” written over it, with Sunil Dutt, Raj Kumar and Rajendra Kumar (along with Nargis, of course) came together.
The first bona-fide and proclaimed multi-starrer was from BR/Yash Chopra camp – Waqt, with names like Sunil Dutt, Raj Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Balraj Sahni, Sadhna and Sharmila Tagore. Moviegoers couldn’t have asked for more, and the producers served the perfect dish for mass consumption. Yash Chopra followed it up with Daag, bringing the two Bengal tigresses, Sharmila Tagore and Rakhee, with the then superstar Rajesh Khanna. The movie, and specially that dramatic sequence between the two ladies, brought a new meaning to stars being pitted against each other for mass hysteria and consumption (and assured big bucks, of course).
Later on, Raj Kumar Kohli took the baton and carried it efficiently for a long time with films like Naagin, Jaani Dushman etc. having all the famous stars of that time worth their salt making an appearance in the movie, role requirement and character development be damned.
Perhaps the only star who didn’t feature in any of these multi-starrers was Dev Anand. He was on very good terms with Guru Dutt, but their professional association was limited to behind the camera only. Of course, Dev Anand worked mostly with the famous leading ladies of his time, but his was mostly a solo-hero project. Probably he didn’t want to dilute his impact on the viewers, or maybe he was too insecured to be compared with a worthy opponent in the same frame.
Talking of insecurity, one superstar who never had any such qualms (probably because he was too self-assured of his bankability and charisma) was Amitabh Bachchan. At the height if his stardom, he acted opposite most of the other towering stars of his generation, be it Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Shatrughan Sinha, Vinod Khanna, Shashi Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor or the likes. Probably the only exception to this rule was with Rajesh Khanna (two masterpieces – Anand and Namak Haram) and Jeetendra (Gehri Chaal), when he was not in his heydays.
Amitabh Bachchan created history of sorts in terms of ’shock-value’, sensationalism and mass hysteria in Silsila by pairing against Rekha and Jaya Bachchan. Although the movie failed to earn the expected mega-bucks, the movie is still known and talked about for its controversial star-cast more than anything else.
Amitabh Bachchan continued with his ‘massive pairing’ when the Sippys brought three generations of the stardom together in Shakti, featuring Dilip Kumar, AB and Anil Kapoor (who was already being touted as the next superstar). Sometimes, producers who wanted a sure-shot winner would coax AB to appear in more than one avatar of his own, giving us Satte Pe Satta, Shahenshah (not exactly a double role, but no one complained), Toofan and Mahaan (three this time)…
AB also worked with the South Superstars Rajnikant and Kamal Hasan in movies like Andha Kanoon, Gireftaar and Hum, but the actual impact of such casting was lost on the Hindi-movie audiences because they could not even fathom the success enjoyed by the two south superstars, and for them, it was just any other ’strong’ pairing with AB.
Talking of the south superstars, old Tamil movies of 80’s have given us some of the memorable movies, and probably the most eclectic star-cast of that era, with Rajni, Kamal Hasan and, at times, Sri Devi coming together in movies like Pathinaru (16) Vayadhinilaye, Moondru Mudichu and Avargal. In these movies, the general trend would be to cast Rajni as an anti-hero against the two leads, and have some character-redemption qualities towards the end. Unfortunately, now we can just wish for the two giants from Tamil film-industry to come together. Probably the only time they do now, is when their movies are likely to be released around the same time, and that also they both try to avoid at all costs, for obvious reasons.
In 1991, Subhash Ghai wrote history of sorts, when he coaxed the reclusive Dilip Kumar and moody Raj Jaani Kumar to come together after more than three decades in Saudagar. The movie had nothing new to offer except the histrionics of these two stalwarts, a fresh faced Manisha Koirala, and the term ILU-ILU being coined for our vocabulary. The movie went on to become one of the biggest hits of that year solely on the basis of its much talked about pairing of the two ageing giants. In my humble opinion, this movie exemplifies the impact of the star-pairing on screen, and was probably the sub-conscious reason why I even thought of writing this post.
Much later, in 2008, the same was tried to be achieved in the Malayalam film industry by bringing in 37 stars worth their salt in Twenty20, including the three big names, Mohanlal, Mamootty and Suresh Gopi. Despite the massive star cast and ego hassles, it surprised everyone by having a real story, and where people were expecting just a star-fest, it threw in a real spanner by giving us a movie to boot, stars or no stars. This is probably the only exception, where in the hindsight, the gamble was played not with a sole motive, and it succeeded on both counts.
Even JP Dutta has tried to make all his money on the basis of huge stars being pitted against each other right from his Gulaami days, going through, Batwara, Kshatriya and Border, which finally culminated into his biting dust with that colossal failure LOC Kargil. He, however, could not desist from casting the power couple Abhishek and Aishwarya in his take on Umrao Jaan, which IMO, did not warrant for that particular casting, and was just a cheap gimmick to garner some eye-balls.
Surprisingly, the Hollywood doesn’t make such a fuss about the massive stars being cast together, and relies more on the performances story/screenplay. That’s the reason we don’t even recognize when Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Robin Williams come do a Good Will Hunting, or when an Ocean-series brings us the most unconventional names together on screen, or even when a Departed power-cast is over-shadowed by the name of the Director on the posters.
However, even the staunchest critics of this concept could not resist hyping the coming together of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in 2008 in Righteous Kill. The movie was a disaster, to say the least, but the occasion of these two tycoons being together and sharing the screen together was too much to ignore. (Their Godfather II and Heat were not the casting-together in its strictest sense).
OK, so that just about sums up what has happened in the past. But what about the future? Will we ever see the stars we actually want to see together? Well, everyone has a secret desire of his / her own wish-list, and mine is to see these pairings, if possible. (Directors / Producers…. please take a note, if you are reading this, it’s a sure-shot way of minting some money even if your movie would not otherwise deserve it…) So, here are my two cents:
Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan (only a Black-magic, pun intended, can make this happen. RGV, please take note. As it is, both these starts owe a thing or two to him)
Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan (I had heard of Rajkumar Santoshi planning ‘Rashq’ with the two, don’t know who backed out..)
Aamir Khan and Salman Khan (Aaila, once was not enough… and they are on good terms now, so I am told)
Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha (wishful thinking, but imagine the impact, if its fulfilled…)
Salman Khan, Abhishek Bachchan and Viveik Oberoi (and maybe Aishwarya too, in a guest appearance, and the main catalyst…)
Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor (cheap thrill, but who cares…)
And here is my personal favourite:
Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty (preferably a Jag Mundhra or Ashok Amritraj production, with HIV message as the backdrop, and maybe Mira Nair can direct. With these ‘foreign’ names, maybe our censor board will take a more lenient view on the content and disposition of the movie)
Well, so there it is. All are, of course, welcome to add their own take on the prospective list… And wait for the day to come when at least one of these ‘wish-list’ becomes a reality.
Tags: Rakhee, Sharmila Tagore, shilpa shetty, sunil dutt
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Subbu Bhai has always tried for mult-start castmovies.
Karma had Jackie, Anil, Dilip and of course, Naseer bhai.
Ram Lakhan had the first two.
And Trimurti, had the first two and SRK.
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K3G had mother of start cast (7 stars, 8 if you include Abhishek and 9 if you include Johnny bhai!) where every one had a well-defined role (It may not be great cinema but that’s not the point).
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As a viewer, earlier I used to get excited with star cast. More the merrier. But now, if multi-star cast are justified then I enjoy otherwise I think its just for a good opening.
Jaani Dushman Ek Anokhi Kahani- The best college students multi starcast- Akshay Kumar, Sunny Deol, Sunil Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Sonu Nigam, Aftab Shivdasani
Fight Club- The best FLOPIYA star cast- Zayed Khan, Sunil Shetty, Dino Morea, Aashish Choudhury, Rahul Dev.
On more serious note, well some combos i wud love seeing
Amitabh Bachan-Kamal Hassan- Last time they appeared it was in a totally forgettable flick called “Geraftaar”. Wud love to see these 2 actors in a Heat or American Gangster kinda movie.
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Hmm right now dont see any way of Aamir doing movies with other actors, neither SRK too.
One project I’m excited about is the tamil version of A Wednesday.Its rumoured that Kamal Haasan would do Nasser’s role & Mammooty would do
Anupam Kher’s role.That would be an interesting combo.
Kamal Haasan’s Thalaivan Irukkiran is supposed to have Rishi Kapoor & Venkatesh too, but I’m more excited to see Kamal Haasan & Mohanlal sharing the same frame together in the movie.
I would personally be very excited to see Amitabh Bachchan & Kamal Haasan together again.Similarly Aamir-SRK combo would be awesome on screen- hope someone takes the challenge to bring them together.
Another big casting coup (in tamil) would be to bring Ajith & Vijay toegther in one movie.They only movie they did was long ago- a dud called Rajavin Parvayile when both were not yet big stars.
Vishesh- I agree K3G was one big multistar cast movie.Couldnt actually get bigger at that point of time.
Ratnakar- Jaani Dushman- Ek Anokhi Kahani was seriously funny.Apart from the people already mentioned it had Sharad Kapoor,Aditya Pancholi,
Siddarth, Rajat Bedi & above all Armaan Kohli
irrfan and nana patekar.. our very own pacino-de niro-ish jodi