Two Films, One Name: Amitabh Bachchan's 1975 Deewar Soared While This 2004 Release Fell Flat

In Bollywood, many films are often made with the same name. If the name is the same, it may not necessarily be a remake. Sometimes, the makers do this to capitalise on the name of a hit film. But not always this strategy is successful at the box office.

The action drama Deewar was released in 1975 and starred Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor. The story was written by the duo Salim-Javed and the director was Yash Chopra. After its release, the film proved to be a huge success at the box office.

After its release, Deewar created a sensation at the box office. It became one of the highest-grossing films of 1975.

Although the 1973 action film Zanjeer made Amitabh Bachchan a superstar, earning him the tag of Angry Young Man. The success of Deewar further increased Amitabh Bachchan’s reputation in the Bollywood industry.

29 years later, another film named Deewar was made in which Amitabh Bachchan starred. This film was released in the year 2004. Big B played the role of Major Ranveer Kaul in this film. Incidentally, it was a multi-starrer film featuring stars like Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Khanna, Kay Kay Menon, Saurabh Dubey and Rajendra Gupta.

Deewar was a patriotic film whose story showed that Major Ranveer Kaul along with his army colleagues was stuck in Pakistan. He along with his team hatches a plan to escape from Pakistani captivity and return to India. The entire story of the film revolves around this plan. Deewar was directed by Milan Luthria.

Amitabh Bachchan’s Deewar was not liked at all by the audience. However, it managed to recover its cost at the box office. According to Box Office India, Amitabh Bachchan’s film Deewar was made on a budget of Rs 21 crore. The film managed to collect a worldwide gross of Rs 21.85 crore. The box office collection of Deewar is a disaster. It didn’t even collect half of its budget.

In an old interview, Amitabh Bachchan happily said, “Sanjay Dutt and I share a lot of valuable screen space in Deewaar: Let’s Bring Our Heroes Home. Our scenes together are very special. He is very good-natured. Unfortunately, anger seems to follow him. Abhishek is very fond of Sanjay and vice versa. Sanjay is almost like a second parent to him. Sanjay keeps pushing him to go to the gym, instructs him on his diet, and fires him if he does the wrong films, they are very close. During LOC, they became even closer when there was a crisis during the shoot in Ladakh.”