Mehul Kumar recalls when Amitabh Bachchan contacted him for work amid ABCL penury

Mehul Kumar recalls when Amitabh Bachchan contacted him for work amid ABCL penury

When ABCL was pushed to bankruptcy, Amitabh Bachchan approached Mehul Kumar, the director of Mrityudaata for work and asked if he has a garma-garam script. This was in
the late 90s. Ironically, Mrityudaatawas bombed at the box-office.

Notedly,at that time around, Amitabh hadn’t yet transitioned from lead roles to supporting roles, but spent a lot of his time and resources on launching his ambitious ABCL venture. In the same year as Mrityudaata’s release, the company attracted negative press for unpaid dues following the Miss World pageant that it organised.

It was amidst this time that Amitabh approached Mehul Kumar at a party and asked him for work. In a recent interview the filmmaker recalled, that It was at the Rangeela music launch, Amit ji was there as well. He wasn’t doing films at the time, and he told him that he had something for him. The next day Mehul got a call from his office, following up on his request. He arranged a meeting, and narrated the film to him. Amitji liked it, and said that he was going to do it.

He continued, the film was completed in six months. It was Amit ji’s comeback film, and he was proud to have directed it. He had also directed Raaj Kumar’s comeback film.” Mrityudaata wasn’t well received, and bombed at the box office. In a 1999 chat with Vir Sanghvi, Amitabh revealed that his wife, Jaya, ‘didn’t sit through‘ the film.

The story of Amitabh asking Yash Chopra for work remains well-known. After the bankruptcy of ABCL, and the subsequent humiliation that Amitabh faced, At the India Today Unforgettables stage in 2016, Amitabh had said, that he was reeling through a huge financial failure in the corporation that he floated. It went bankrupt and bankrupted him at the same time. Amitabh had also met Yash Chopra nd said he is jobless need work and that’s how Mohabbatein happened. Amitabh remains the most admired male star of his generation, and recently delivered the biggest hit of his career in Kalki 2898 AD.

All said credit goes to the late veteran filmmaker Prakash Mehra who gave Amitabh Bachchan a big break in his Zanjeer as a police officer. The film was a blockbuster success and Amitabh never looked back after this.

News Edit K.V.Raman