Aamir Khan, known for his sharp instincts when choosing films, has never been one to shy away from acknowledging a failure. One such moment in his career was Thugs of Hindostan, a high-budget, star-studded film that failed to deliver on the grand expectations surrounding it.
In a recent interview, Aamir Khan offered a candid insight into the many missteps that led to the film’s underwhelming outcome, from casting complications to last-minute script overhauls that left him disillusioned.
Recalling the struggles with casting, Aamir Khan shared that securing a female lead proved to be a daunting task. The film was offered to several leading actresses including Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt and Shraddha Kapoor, all of whom declined the role. Eventually, Fatima Sana Shaikh came on board but only after the part had been turned down across the industry. Aamir Khan acknowledged that the lukewarm reception to the script might have been a contributing factor behind their decisions.
With Fatima cast, a new concern surfaced regarding their on-screen relationship. Given their previous roles as father and daughter in Dangal, director Vijay Krishna Acharya decided to completely remove the romantic subplot between the two in Thugs of Hindostan. Aamir, however, felt this was an unnecessary move driven by misplaced assumptions. He expressed his disagreement, arguing that audiences are intelligent enough to distinguish between actors and their roles. He said that he truly was neither her father nor her boyfriend, it was simply fiction and the audience, in his view, wouldn’t confuse the two. He felt such decisions were underestimating the viewers’ perception.
Beyond casting and character dynamics, Aamir Khan pointed to more critical issues with the film’s development, most notably, the constant rewriting of the script. He revealed that the final version of Thugs of Hindostan was so different from what was originally envisioned that it no longer felt like the same film. When producer Aditya Chopra saw the first cut and enthusiastically praised it as a brilliant film, Aamir was stunned. He confessed that he couldn’t understand what had been made and told the team outright that he believed the film wouldn’t last even a day at the box office. Initially, they thought he was joking but his concerns were genuine. He continued to argue that the film was fundamentally flawed in its structure and direction, leading to daily clashes with the team during post-production.
Adding to the missed opportunities, Aamir Khan revealed that one of the early versions of the script included a bold narrative decision – Amitabh Bachchan’s character was supposed to d*e at the interval. However, this impactful twist was eventually dropped. Aamir felt sidelined during such major creative decisions, saying that both Vijay Krishna Acharya and Aditya Chopra were satisfied with the direction the film was taking and didn’t want his interference, emphasising that as director and producer, they had the final authority.
In reflecting on the film’s failure, Aamir’s remarks reveal not just regret but a deeper frustration with how the vision of a promising project became diluted through a series of avoidable misjudgments. Thugs of Hindostan stands out in his filmography not just as a misfire but as a cautionary tale about losing control of the narrative, both on-screen and behind the scenes.
