Batwara 1947, the upcoming Sunny Deol-starrer is unique for many reasons. The partition drama reunites filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi and Sunny Deol after 30 years. Their last collaboration was the 1996 film Ghatak, which was a boxoffice hit and enjoys a cult status till date. In a recent interview, however, Rajkumar Santoshi revealed the first choice for Ghatak.

Speaking to Fever FM, the Batwara 1947 filmmaker shared, “There was this project called Ghatak, and I’m a huge fan of Kamal Haasan, so I spoke to him about it.  Sunny wasn’t well at that time, and he was planning another movie called Ajay. I was doing a romantic film with Madhuri Dixit. It was totally different, no action, which nobody really did with Sunny back then. That’s why I thought maybe I’d do something with Kamal Haasan, and that’s how the buzz started."

Sharing details of why the collaboration didn’t work out, the Ghatak director noted, “Then complications began with the pricing because Bharat Shah was our partner, and there was some disagreement between them. As a result, the collaboration could not materialise.”

Rajkumar went on to reveal how he eventually revived the project after a while and approached Sunny this time, adding, ““I said, ‘Sunny, let’s do this film,’ and he immediately said, ‘Yes, we’ll do it.'”

Interesting, Kamal Haasan had earlier headlined Sathyaa (1988), an official remake of the Sunny Deol starrer Arjun (1985). 

Before Ghatak, Rajkumar and Sunny had collaborated on Ghayal (1990) and Damini (1993), both of which proved to be landmark in the careers of both the actor and the filmmaker. 

Batwara 1947 reunites the two after 30 years. Besides Sunny, the film also stars Shabana Azmi, Preity Zinta and Ali Fazal in the lead cast. The film is set to release on August 14, where it clashes against Emraan Hashmi starrer Awarapan 2