Chulbul Pandey in ‘Dabangg’ was originally a negative character: Salman

PTI, Dec 15, 2019, 3:24 PM IST

Mumbai: Superstar Salman Khan has revealed that “Dabangg” was originally a dark film with its lead character Chulbul Pandey being “out and out negative.”

Directed by Abhinav Kashyap, the 2010 film featured Salman as Pandey, a fearless yet corrupt police officer with unorthodox working methods. It received critical acclaim and was a blockbuster upon its release.

In a group interview, Salman revealed that before him, actor Randeep Hooda and his brother Arbaaz Khan were approached for the project.

“It was a very dark film, a small film to be made under Rs 2 crore. At that point in time, it had Randeep Hooda and Arbaaz. So Arbaaz said he has been approached for this and it’s a good one so just hear it.

“Then six-eight months passed before I finally heard it. I think UTV was supposed to do it. I liked the feel of the film but Chulbul was out and out negative.”

Salman said he then suggested changes to Arbaaz and Abhinav incorporated them.
“That film didn’t have any action, certainly not at this scale. There were no songs and we never get to know who killed the mother… We started working on it and Abhinav agreed to all those changes. He did a very good job with the first one.”

Salman said after the film became a success, they asked Abhinav to make a sequel but he was not so inclined. “We asked him to do the second one but for whatever reasons he said he didn’t want to do it, that we didn’t let him make his film.”

“Dabangg” marked Arbaaz’s foray into production. It’s the third installment, “Dabangg 3” is now scheduled to release on December 20.