Karan Johar on why Hrithik & not Abhi for Agneepath

By Subhash K Jha

It’s official. Karan Johar finally admits it is Hrithik Roshan and Priyanka Chopra in the Agneepath remake.

Speaking officially for the first time about the casting of the Agneepath remake Karan Johar coolly and cleverly passes on the buck to his newbie director Karan Malhotra for Abhishek Bachchan’s non-presence in the remake…a casting digression that jolted everyone who thought Abhishek was a natural and inevitable inheritor of the Agneepth role.

Says Karan, “When my father (the late Yash Johar)produced Agneepath he left everything to his director Mukul Anand and kept completely away from the project. I’m carrying on the family tradition. The casting for the Agneepath remake was decided by the director Siddharth Malhotra.

He decided on Hrithik Roshan and Priyanka Chopra. Why Hrithik and not Abhishek? I think Siddharth has his own ideas on how to present the character. I think the protagonist in the new Agneepath would be very

different from how he was in the original.”

The script for the new Agneepath is also entirely re-vamped. Priyanka Chopra won’t play a nurse, like Madhavi had done in the original.And the Mithun Chakraborty character from the original has been done away with completely.

If there was any tension about the Bachchan’s scion Abhishek not even been approached for the remake of Agneepath it was wiped away on Wednesday and Thursday night this week at the haute cuture week where it was crystal-clear in public that the Bachchans still treated Karan as part of their family.

On Wednesday night at Manish Malhotra’s fashion show Abhishek, more baffled than hurt by not even asked to do the Agneepath remake, walked up and warmly hugged Karan.

The following evening on Thursday, Karan coaxed the original Agneepath protagonist Big B to walk the ramp with star of the remake Hrithik Roshan, thereby putting an end to all speculation within the film industry about a strain between the Bachchan parivar and Karan over the Agneepath issue.

Says Karan emotionally, “The Bachchans and my family go back a long way. Our association is not on a film-to-film basis. It doesn’t matter how many films we work in or don’t work in.For the record I will be doing at least ten more films with Abhishek in my lifetime. He’s already done two films with our banner Dharma Productions. He’s doing Dostana 2 next year.”