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For Salman Khan “Wanted” was the turning point in his career. It was the time when Shah Rukh Khan was doing romantic movies with Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra and emerged as the romantic Bollywood superstar. SRK was delivering back-to-back hits with big banners whereas Salman Khan was struggling with mediocre movies like Judwa or Jeet.
Around the 2000s romantic and family-oriented movies were at their prime and even action heroes like Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar had to romance and do such roles and had very little scope to showcase their action talent as an all-action movie was a rarity in those days. Things changed when Salman Khan ’s Wanted directed by Prabhu Deva and produced by Boney Kapoor became a big hit.
While the Bajrangi Bhaijan has repeatedly admitted that Wanted became a saviour for his career, even Rohit Shetty during one of his interviews revealed how the movie’s success changed the direction of his thinking and filmmaking.
Talking to Komal Nahta, the Singham director said, “Wanted lagi thi PVR mein. And if I’m not wrong, Wanted to ‘A’ Certificate mila tha. 2009 ki baat kar raha hoon. Toh mein akele gaya tha woh film dekhane kuynki A tha. Toh, woh jamana tha 2000-2009 ka jab sab romantic films kar rahe the, family films kar rahe the.”
Shetty further said,”Karan Johar was in full form, everyone wanted to be a Karan Johar , Adi Chopra at that time. And Wanted came at that time. After a phase, even Salman was in a good position. And I was sitting in PVR, Juhu and I can make out certain things. Ladkiya baithi thi, good family and college-going girls. And they were whistling and cheering on the action.”
That is when Rohit Shetty realised that now multiplex audiences will see hardcore action movies. And that is how he decided to make an action movie Singham. The rest is history as two parts of Singham, Simmba and Sooryavanshi, all directed by Rohit have been big blockbusters.
In a way, Shetty believes that if he had not gone to watch Wanted then he may not have diverted his focus to making action movies after delivering a hit comedy franchise like Golmaal.
