Ameesha Patel Says ‘Yeh Hai Jalwa’ Got “Sidelined” Due To Media Frenzy Around Salman Khan's Hit-And-Run Case
‘Yeh Hai Jalwa’, starring Ameesha Patel and Salman Khan, was released in July 2002, months before Salman's hit-and-run case.
Salman Khan and Ameesha Patel came together for David Dhawan's ‘Yeh Hai Jalwa’, which was released in July 2002. However, the romance drama miserably tanked at the box office. Ameesha Patel, who is riding high on the success of her new Hindi movie ‘Gadar 2’, recently recalled the debacle. And, she believes that the 2002 Bollywood movie didn’t do well at the box because of her co-star Salman’s hit-and-run case. She spoke about the failure of ‘Yeh Hai Jalwa’ in a recent interview with Bollywood Hungama.
In the interview with Bollywood Hungama, Ameesha Patel was asked to name a film of hers that she thinks should have done well and she picked ‘Yeh Hai Jalwa’. She believes that the 2002 Bollywood film did not get the right attention due to the media frenzy around Salman Khan's hit-and-run case in the same year.
Ameesha Patel said, “Yeh Hai Jalwa was one of David Dhawan's best films. Salman has never looked more handsome and the music and everything was good. But I think because earlier the media gave news the audiences were not so open about accepting some negative news about their favourite actors.”
She added, “Salman's accident had newly happened so Yeh Hai Jalwa got sidelined. Had the audience been open to it…that is one film that would have done really well.”
For the unversed, ‘Yeh Hai Jalwa’ was released on 3 July 2002. Reportedly, on 28 September 2002, Salman Khan was arrested for rash and negligent driving after his car ran into a bakery in Mumbai.
As per reports, the incident killed one who was sleeping on the pavement outside the bakery while three others were injured. Initially, charges of culpable homicide were laid against the actor. However, later it was dropped.
Meanwhile, Ameesha Patel also named another film which couldn't work despite high hopes.
“There was a film called Zameer with Ajay Devgn where he is my professor. It was a remake of Tamil film, which was a national award-winning film. Unfortunately, the producer passed away when the film was about to release so it couldn't get to the audience correctly, the way it would have if the producer have been alive. I didn't think Mangal Panday needed to be written off so badly the way they wrote it off,” she said.
Ameesha Patel recently made her comeback to films with ‘Gadar 2’, co-starring Sunny Deol. Directed by Anil Sharma, the film reunited Ameesha Patel and Sunny Deol as they reprised their iconic characters Tara Singh and Sakina from their 2001 hit film ‘Gadar: Ek Prem Katha’.
The film also stars Anil Sharma’s son Utkarsh Sharma in the lead role.
