Ajay Devgn reflects on ‘Phool aur Kante’, ‘Lamhe’ opening on same day

Mumbai, Dec 21

Bollywood star Ajay Devgn, who appeared in the latest episode of the ‘Koffee With Karan’ along with director Rohit Shetty, opened up on the clash between his film ‘Phool aur Kante’ and ‘Lamhe’ starring Anil Kapoor and Sridevi.

‘Lamhe’ is one of the iconic films of Hindi cinema and is often considered to be ahead of its times. The stakes were high because 'Lamhe' was Yash Chopra’s next film after ‘Chandni’.

The film, however, didn’t do well as it featured an inter-generational love story. Yash Chopra once told Karan Johar that the audience was with the film for 16,000 feet of its reel. But it could not digest the last 500 feet because of the love story.

The audience after getting repulsed by the love story drifted towards ‘Phool aur Kante’ which has more masala and a new star on the block.

Talking about the same, Karan Johar said: “Ajay, I’ve always wanted to ask you, as a film fan, I remember your film ‘Phool aur Kaante’ was releasing with the very celebrated film ‘Lamhe’, It was Yash Chora’s film after ‘Chandni’ and there was a lot of hype on the fact that it was a film coming and then there was a new actor coming in a film called ‘Phool aur Kante’. The music had done exceptionally well, today, we are generally more aware about box office, but at that time what was your feeling coming with a juggernaut film?”

Responding to the same, Ajay said: “When you are young, you don't think about all these things and as a newcomer I had no choice in deciding the date of the film, and my attitude at that point of time also when I started work: You know, you are carefree at that age, you are like hua toh hua, nahi hua toh kuch aur karenge kind of an attitude.”

He further mentioned: “I remember, Anil ji met me and he said, very sweetly and honestly, what are you’ll doing yaar, tell your producer not to come, ‘Lamhe’ is such a big film, obviously such a big starcast, Yash ji. I said it's not in my hands. He was very sweet. But you never know what happens, what works, what does not work.”

Karan Johar said: “That's the irony of so many things in the industry.”

‘Koffee With Karan’ season 8 streams on Disney+ Hotstar.