Did you know? Amitabh Bachchan and Akshay Kumar’s thriller Aankhen was conceptualised as a franchise

Aankhen, which is now remembered as a cult classic, was written with the aim to be expanded into a franchise. Producer-director Vipul Amrutlal Shah revealed this fun fact about the film, which marks its 20th anniversary today.

Shah told Pinkvilla that Aankhen was released with two different endings in India and abroad. The overseas print was given an alternate ending which was open-ended and saw Amitabh Bachchan’s character Vijay, after serving time in prison, reach the train station with Akshay Kumar (Vishwas) and Arjun Rampal (Arjun) are waiting for their train to depart. 

“He [Bachchan] says a dangerous game is about to begin and the end credits start rolling. I was told, India is not ready for such open-ended stories as the concept of sequel didn’t exist back then. So, I had to cut that out of the Indian version. The film was originally designed as a sequel with an open end. Now, we have all moved on (sic),” said the producer-director.

In 2019, a sequel with Bachchan, Jacqueline Fernandez and Saif Ali Khan was announced but the makers never went forward with it.

Shah made his directorial debut with the thriller which revolves around three visually impaired men (Kumar, Paresh Rawal and Rampal) who are hired by Bachchan’s character to stage an elaborate bank heist. 

While talking about the original plans of Aankhen as a franchise, Shah also revealed that when he wanted to make this film, not many believed it would see success. For him to round up an impressive cast with A-list actors was a feat because he was relatively unknown in the movie circuit. However, in the end, the novelty of the premise trumped all inhibitions.

After Aankhen, which also had Sushmita Sen in a pivotal role, was released it had a thriving theatrical run.

In fact, it went on to be the second highest-grossing film of 2002, according to a 2017 Hindustan Times report. Shah revealed that he never truly knew of the exact amount that Aankhen earned, owing to his newbie status in the industry. He said his way to judge the response to the film was solely based on the “amount of phone calls the producers got.”

Aankhen also led to him and Kumar forming a lucrative partnership, and they later worked on films like Waqt, Namastey London, Singh Is Kinng and Holiday (both produced by Shah) as well as Action Replayy. Shah said that Kumar often “would go an extra mile” to create a “beautiful” environment on set. He added the actor wasn’t taken seriously back in the day, but he always believes that “the professional and disciplined” Kumar had a lot to offer.

The supporting cast of Aankhen also includes Aditya Pancholi, Arun Bali, Ajit Vachani, and Bipasha Basu in a cameo.

Aankhen is available to watch on Voot, Tata Play, Airtel Xstream, Amazon Prime Video, Jio Cinema and MXPlayer.