David Dhawan was nervous to remake Coolie No.1

When ace Bollywood director David Dhawan decided to reimaging the story of Coolie No.1 in 2020, he never imagined the release of the remake would coincide with the 25th anniversary of the 1995 blockbuster movie, “It’s sheer coincidence, it just happened.” David Dhawan said.

His last outing Judwa 2, was a hit, in which his son and popular actor Varun Dhawan was the lead. The original Judwaa was headlined by Salman Khan. The remake of Coolie No.2 will see father-son duo uniting again which will be a light-hearted entertainer. “The movie is going to be good. The movie is a fast-paced and an entertainer as I believe people really need this for these unprecedented times,” he said.

Talking about how he got the idea of the remake, Mr.Dhawan said, “Initially the thought of a remake never occurred to me. But I wanted to make something with Varun and then suddenly thought of Coolie No. 1. I asked Varun to watch and tell me what he thought, but he did not answer. While he liked the film, he thought it was a difficult film as one of the best actors played the role. Around the same time Vashu ji (Bhagnani) said it’s a damn good film and let’s remake it. Coolie No. 1 was the first film that Vashu and I made together. When I started to work on the script, I had to redo everything. I would not have made the film otherwise.”

The remake of Coolie No.1 is David Dhawan’s baby step on creating content for OTT platform, who also did the cuts of the film. “I have always made films for cinema halls. I was a little anxious about the response of the audience. It is the first time I am entering the OTT space. But so far the response was overwhelming,” he said.

The makers also retained two songs from the original soundtrack. He said that working with a bunch of new music directors is different from older times, “Definitely, there is a difference, they all are exceptionally good music directors but are extremely occupied. Today music is created in the house. I remember in earlier times we would get together and make music. Anand, Sameer and I have sat for many days together to create music. We would have a lot of discussions, and go to theatres. This is one of the differences, but both have their good and bad sides.”

Coolie No.1, the remake of the 1995 comedy starring Govinda and Karishma Kapoor, will feature Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan in the lead roles. The film also stars Paresh Rawal, Javed Jaaferi, Rajpal Yadav and Johnny Lever. The film is slated to release on December 25,2020 on Amazon Prime Video.