UPS AND DOWNS
Fakir Hassen|Published
FOR decades, Indian movie makers “borrowed” stories from Hollywood or other foreign film industries to make their own productions in local languages.
The premise was simple - take a successful movie, transplant it into an Indian cultural context, and infuse it with emotional melodramas, high-stakes romance, and elaborate musical sequences.
Long before formal intellectual property agreements became standard practice in global entertainment, Bollywood frequently looked westward to Hollywood as an endless wellspring of inspiration.
This phenomenon, spanning uncredited plot lifts, creative localisations, and official studio remakes, has defined some of the biggest blockbusters and most intriguing failures in Hindi cinema history. The dynamic between Hollywood originals and their Bollywood iterations reveals a fascinating intersection of cross-cultural adaptation, artistic translation, and shifting legal landscapes.
During the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, global copyright enforcement was virtually non-existent across international film markets. Hindi screenwriters regularly adapted foreign films without formal licensing, viewing the process not as infringement, but as translating a good story for a vastly different audience.
Crucially, "knocking off" a Hollywood film in this era rarely meant making a carbon copy. To succeed at the Indian box office, a narrative had to be thoroughly masala-fied.
A 90-minute Western thriller or Hollywood romantic comedy had to be expanded into a three-hour epic featuring musical interludes translating narrative beats or emotional internal monologues into multi-song soundtracks; expanded subplots adding comedy sidekicks, matriarchal family dynamics, and dramatic revenge motives; and moral realignment to traditional social values and family structures.
Iconic examples of pre-2000 adaptations included Sholay (1975), which blended the mercenary-for-hire plot of Westerns like The Magnificent Seven (1960) and Seven Samurai (1954) with aesthetics, iconic comedy, and revenge drama to create one of Indian cinema's greatest epics.
Chachi 420 (1997) followed the theme of Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), replacing Robin Williams' voice-actor protagonist with a traditional Indian dancer and father, weaving classical music and domestic family politics into the cross-dressing farce.
French Kiss (1995) became Pyar To Hona Hi Tha (1998), turning a modest Hollywood romantic comedy into an Indian box-office juggernaut by emphasising traditional wedding festivities and family values.
As the new millennium dawned and the old large cinemas gave way to multiplexes, audience demographics shifted toward urban youth who were increasingly watching original American films. Directors like Sanjay Gupta, Vikram Bhatt, and David Dhawan built entire filmographies around adapting Western action-thrillers and comedies for domestic audiences.
Sanjay Gupta’s Kaante (2002) famously adapted Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992). Set in Los Angeles with an all-star Indian cast (including Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Dutt), Kaante translated Tarantino's non-linear heist dynamic into a heavily stylised, hyper-masculine thriller. Tarantino himself later noted that he appreciated how Kaante expanded on his characters' backstories beyond the original film's bottle-episode structure.
Similarly, Aamir Khan’s Ghajini (2008) adapted Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000). While Nolan's indie classic relied on a cerebral, backward-running narrative structure, Ghajini transformed the short-term memory loss premise into a high-octane action-romance complete with body transformations, viral dance numbers, and emotional revenge tropes. Ghajini went on to become the first Hindi film to cross the historic 100-crore box office threshold.
The wild-west era of uncredited adaptations came to an abrupt halt in the late 2000s. As major Hollywood studios, including 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers and Disney, established direct distribution and production offices in Mumbai, legal scrutiny intensified.
A major catalyst occurred in 2009 when Warner Brothers threatened legal action against the producers of Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai, an uncredited remake of My Cousin Vinny (1992). The resulting out-of-court settlement signaled to Mumbai's film fraternity that lifting intellectual property was no longer a viable business model.
This legal transition ushered in the era of officially licensed Hollywood remakes. We Are Family (2010) was an official remake of Stepmom (1998), produced under a joint venture between Karan Johar's Dharma Productions and Sony Pictures. Bang Bang! (2014) was an official, high-budget licensing of 20th Century Fox's Knight and Day (2010) starring Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif.
Laal Singh Chaddha (2022) was an official adaptation of Paramount's Forrest Gump (1994) starring Aamir Khan, who spent over a decade securing rights and translating key beats of American history (like Vietnam and Watergate) into Indian historical events (such as the Emergency and the 1983 Cricket World Cup).
But remakes do not always work. The huge success of The Italian Job, when redone in Hindi as Players (2012), flopped miserably because it failed to connect with domestic audiences. Conversely, when a foreign premise is thoroughly adapted to reflect local emotional, familial, and social realities, it ceases to be a mere copy and becomes a distinct artistic work in its own right.
Today, with international streaming services making global content instantly accessible, the era of sneaky plot lifts is virtually over. Yet, the legacy of these adaptations remains a testament to the fluid, cross-pollinating nature of global cinema, demonstrating how a single story can be reimagined to move audiences on opposite sides of the planet.
Fakir Hassen is a veteran Bollywood critic who has written four books on the subject.