On November 13, 2012, Vijay and AR Murugadoss' Thuppakki, which went on to become a blockbuster hit, opened in theatres. On Thursday, the film clocked 13 years. The film was later remade in Hindi as Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty, with Akshay Kumar in the lead role, in place of Vijay. But did you know that Holiday was supposed to be made even before Thuppakki?

In a 2014 interview with the Hindustan Times, the producer of Holiday, Vipul A Shah, revealed that Murugadoss told him the story of Thuppakki, visualised with Akshay Kumar, way back in 2010. “Even before he made it in Tamil, titled Thuppakki, Murugadoss narrated the script to me in 2010. I immediately thought that this film would take my association with Akshay further. Luckily, when we narrated the story to him, he loved it too. Holiday was supposed to be made in Hindi first, but due to some time constraints, that didn’t happen. Our shooting had even begun before the release of Thuppakki," he said.

Thuppakki also starred Kajal Aggarwal in the lead, with Sathyan, Vidyut Jammwal, Jayaram, Manobala and Zakir Hussain in supporting roles. The story follows an Indian Army intelligence officer who must track down and neutralise a sleeper cell after narrowly escaping one of their bombings.

Meanwhile, the Hindi remake, which came out in 2014, also stars Sonakshi Sinha, Freddy Daruwala, Sumeet Raghavan and Govinda in a special appearance. The working title for the film was Pistol but was later changed to Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty.

Upon release on Deepavali in 2012, Thuppakki mostly received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. Its total domestic box office collections at the end of its run stood at Rs 1.8 billion, according to distributors of the film, Eros International. Thuppakki was also remade in Bengali as Game.