The story goes back to the time when Legendary director Yash Chopra was planning to make Dil To Paagal Hai. According to a Bollywood Thikana report, the filmmaker was planning to cast Jackie Shroff as the second lead along with Shah Rukh Khan. However, later he thought to cast a young actor and that’s how Akshay Kumar came on board.
The shooting of DTPH was almost complete but Akshay’s films were not working well at the Box Office. This brought Yash Chopra under a lot of pressure as people were suggesting him to drop Akshay. Since the shoot was almost complete, he couldn’t have done that.
Akshay Kumar & yash Chopra
The problem started when the film released and Akshay reached out to him to get the payment. To his surprise, Yash Chopra said that he shouldn’t ask for the payment because at this time when all his films are not doing well, just working in a YRF film is a big thing for him.
This was the day when Akshay decided to never work with YRF again until Tashan. At that time, YRF had given back to back disappointments and Akshay was giving back to back hits. The luck was totally in favour of Khiladi Kumar and YRF approached to get him on board for the action drama. It was only after they agreed to give him the desired remuneration, he agreed to do the film.
Now again, after more than a decade, Akshay & YRF are collaborating for Pritviraj which is going to be one of the biggest upcoming Bollywood films.
Source - Bollywood thikana, Koimoi , Google image