OLD VS NEW: Rekha (top) in Umrao Jaan. Aishwarya Rai (above) is playing the lead role in J.P. Dutta’s remake of the film

Feroz Khan is remaking his own classic hit, Qurbani. Sudhir Mishra is remaking his Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin in English. Ram Gopal Varma is remaking his own Shiva and James as Shiva. Kamal Sadanah wants to produce his late father Brij Sadanah’s Victoria No 203’s remake. Yash Chopra is toying with the idea of remaking Kabhie Kabhie.

That, of course, is not the whole story. Vashu Bhagnani bought the rights and remade Mehboob Khan’s Anmol Ghadi as Jeena Sirrf Merre Liye, Farhan Akhtar is halfway through his film, Don, with Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra, J.P. Dutta has remade Umrao Jaan with Aishwarya Rai, Pritish Nandy is remaking Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam with Priyanka Chopra, Rituparno Ghosh is remaking Guide as Rahgeer (though there has been some distancing from Guide because Dev Anand didn’t give permission to remake the film), Akbar Khan’s remake of the original Taj Mahal hit Pakistani theatres recently after failing in India and a remake of Chaudhvin Ka Chand, to be directed by journalist turned director Anusha Gill, is in the offing. Tusshar Kapoor wants to act in a remake of his father’s Bond flick, Farz, while photographer Subi Samuel wants to remake Noorie.

Suddenly, every producer or director worth his salt has a remake on the horizon. Even films based on literary works such as Devdas and Parineeta have been or are being remade under the same names. So what’s going on? Quite simply, film makers are not too keen on the possibility of others tampering with their work at some point of time in future. “The decision to remake the film has created a huge buzz in media and film circles,” notes Feroz Khan. “Qurbani completed 25 years last year and I think it is right for me to remake my own film at a time when many producers are busy remaking other people’s films. I had a toss up between Qurbani and Dharmatma. I realised that Qurbani was an original script and way ahead of its times and decided to cast Fardeen in my role, Saif in the role played by Vinod Khanna and myself in the role of the inspector played by Amjad Khan,” says Khan, who is yet to cast an actress in the role played earlier by Zeenat Aman.

Many filmmakers are often inspired by their own films or, like Ram Gopal Varma, want to better their products. Some even find that the films can now be remixed in the current milieu. Ram Gopal Varma says that the idea of remaking James came from the failure of the film rather than from its success. “With James, the idea was to restore the magic of the intense action movies of the ’70s and the ’80s where Amitabh Bachchan and even Mithun Chakraborty and Vinod Khanna played such roles. But, in the last two decades, we stopped making this kind of films. But since I was busy with Sarkar, James failed,” says Varma. “I know what the fundamental mistake was. I became a filmmaker as there was something about cinema that attracted me immensely. When I was desperate to become a filmmaker, I made my first film, Shiva. So I decided to capture all those moments in the new Shiva,” says Varma who is also in the process of remaking Sholay.

Verma continues: “The original Shiva dealt with a student tackling goondaism on campus when the management failed to do so. Place the same thought in the context of the Mumbai police. A man trains at the police academy and, equipped with the idealism of a policeman, joins the force when the Mumbai police is at its worst phase. The plot is quite similar. The setting and the characters are different. There are strong references to the original.” Varma adds, “People who remember Shiva can see a lot of parallels. On the other hand, Sholay is a tribute to a film which I’ve watched so many times.”

Karan Johar says that people who want to pay tribute to earlier films remake films. “I know Farhan is remaking Don because he is a fan of the film. Ditto with Ram Gopal Varma. I’d have wanted to remake Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, but I guess someone else is already doing that.”

Still, not everyone agrees that old films should be remade. Says Dipesh Salgia, the project manager for the colourised and digitally enhanced Mughal-e-Azam, “We colourised Mughal-e-Azam because such a classic cannot be remade. Anarkali was made and released before Mughal-e-Azam was completed, but the latter is far superior.”

Dev Anand declined to allow Pritish Nandy and Rituparno Ghosh to remake Guide. Not that he wants to remake it himself. “I don’t think we should be looking at remakes. On an idea level, I thought of colourising some of my earlier films or even digitally enhancing them, but not any more. One should not dwell in the past or merely bask in their glory by remaking those films. Let’s move ahead. I am now writing my future films,” says the evergreen hero.

Yet when it comes to film versions of literary works, legendary writer Nabendu Ghosh, who penned several classics for Bimal Roy adapting them from Sarat Chandra’s novels, says that films should be remade. “Why not? It will give a different interpretation. Filmmakers should have the liberty to remake films in their own styles. How else will a filmmaker develop one?” he argues.

Yet theatre owner and producer Manoj Desai has a grouse. “Every second film announcement is that of a remake or a sequel. Filmmakers have run out of original ideas,” he says. Perhaps. But remakes can be classics too ? Mehboob Khan’s Mother India (1957) itself was a remake of his own film, Aurat (1940).