The Donism!!

It has been the year of heroes at the box-office. With movies such as Bodyguard, Force, Singham, Ra.One and Ready fetching over Rs 100 crore, the latest trend is to make the good guy win. However, this year’s last release, Don 2, will turn that around. With Shah Rukh Khan donning negative shades once again, it is his anti-hero antics that are likely to end the year on a high note.

There are certain factors which will work in favour of this December 23 release. It is one of 2011’s biggest movies and it will have a free run for two weeks as no other film is hitting the theatres during this period. The slick promos of Don 2 have already earned a few million hits on Youtube and it is only a matter of time before the big moolah comes in. “With Christmas around and a long holiday week ahead, it could be the latest film to reach the Rs 100 crore mark this year,” feels trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

The Don 2 team is eager to know the public verdict. Khan, who reprises his role of a gangster with devilish charms, is happy that his fans who have been waiting for him to do something with a grey shade, get a chance to witness it. “People accepted me as a superstar when I started my career playing a bad guy,” he laughs. “Usually, people are launched with movies such as Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak or Maine Pyar Kiya or Band Baaja Baaraat or Saawariya. I wasn’t launched that way. I was launched with movies such as Deewana, Darr, Baazigar and Anjaam,” he says.

For Akhtar, it’s more of a “passion project”. He’s confident that the box-office collections will be aided by the collective fan following of Khan and the character of Don. Khan too believes in the character’s appeal. “Don belongs to the typical male species and is very endearing to girls as most of them love conniving, mean men,” says the actor.

Don 2 is an extension of the kind of movies the 45-year-old loves to do. “Somewhere, this film is a latent desire to let go of all the goodness I have had for so many years. We like to play what we are not in real life. And I am not as romantic and not as mean. Hence, I like to play both these characters,” says Khan.

When Shah Rukh entered the industry, he knew he did not have the face of a romantic hero. So during his initial years in the industry, he mostly portrayed characters with grey shades, till Yash Chopra convinced him otherwise. “At 26, I thought I was too old to do college romance films. Ironically, at 45, people think I am still not too old to do them,” he jokes.

However, Khan agreed to trade his romantic image for a mean one when Akhtar, who was planning to remake Don, came to him with a one-line brief: “The inspector will tell Don, ‘Your mother would be so ashamed of you.’ And Don will respond, ‘You don’t know my mother, inspector. She will be proud of me’.”

With Don 2 being the first Indian sequel of a remake, the onus will be on the filmmakers to shake off comparisons with the original Don and especially with Amitabh Bachchan. Shah Rukh, however, feels he has been plagued with comparisons all his life and now he chooses to look over. “It irritates me that they are belittling the importance of someone like Amitabh Bachchan. And why compare? Our movie is ours, their movie is theirs. Both of them are okay in their respective spaces,” he says.