History repeats itself but at times, History repeats itself more than once. Yash Raj Films and Shah Rukh Khan is one such combo. Everyone knows that whenever they come together, they create landmark films. Not once not twice but numerous times. Let’s look at three landmark moments which changed course of cinema as well as paved new ways for SRK and YRF.
Darr (1993)
Yash Chopra was one of the most successful directors ever in Indian cinema. His career spanned more than 50 years and he gave some remarkable cinema. But his career hit all time low in 1980’s when he delivered one failure after another and that too with biggest of the actors. In 1981, ‘Silsila’ proved to be a box office disappointment despite biggest of the cast including Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha. In 1984, Dilip Kumar starrer ‘Mashaal’ was again average at box office followed by strings of flops – ‘Faasle’ (1985), ‘Vijay’ (1988), ‘Lamhe’ (1991) and ‘Parampara’ (1992). Only successful film was Rishi Kapoor and Sridevi starrer ‘Chandani’.
In 1993, Yash Chopra decided to make a risky film ‘Darr’ where villain’s character was as glorified as hero. Aamir Khan and various actors turned down the film citing too dark shades and too many beatings character faces by hands of Sunny Deol. Then Yash Ji approached a new face Shah Rukh for the film and they created box office history with that film. ‘Darr’ proved to be turning point for YRF as well as SRK as it gave birth to the longest association of Indian cinema.
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)
When Yash Chopra’s son Aditya Chopra decided to turn film maker, it was again Shah Rukh Khan who came on board to star in a fresh NRI appealing love story DDLJ. Film became one of the biggest hits of Indian cinema ever and became part of pop culture. It established SRK as quintessential romantic guy and Aditya Chopra as biggest director in India.
Pathaan (2023)
2022 proved to be most disaster year for YRF as not one but handful of films flopped badly. ‘Jayeshbhai Jordaar’, ‘Samrat Prithviraj’, Shamshera’ were box office duds. Shah Rukh was coming out of string of failures of ‘Zero‘, ‘Fan’ and ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’. But ‘Pathaan’ again changed the fate of YRF and King Khan as film proved to be a box office monster with 1050 crore worldwide gross, biggest hit ever in Indian cinema.
All the detractors who were singing obituaries of Shah Rukh and YRF, now busy singing their praises. YRF is announcing one major announcement every day with huge cash in bank and every major star joining YRF’s Spy Universe. Shah Rukh has massive line up of ‘Jawan’ in June and ‘Dunki’ in December. And then SRK will return for YRF’s ‘Tiger Vs Pathaan’ in 2025. On the other hand, YRF will be releasing ‘War 2’, ‘Tiger Vs Pathaan’ and ‘Tiger 3’.
Few matches are made in heaven and this is one such match!
