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Films Rejected by Dharmendra: Dharmendra may have been a superstar of his time, but some of his decisions played a big role in making Amitabh Bachchan the emperor of Bollywood.
27 November, 2025
Films Rejected by Dharmendra: In the Golden Era of Bollywood, Dharmendra was not just a superstar but the first choice of every filmmaker. His popularity in the 70s was such that big directors never got tired of praising him. But do you know that Dharmendra had rejected many big films? The interesting thing is that 3 of these films later proved to be the biggest hits of Amitabh Bachchan’s career. These were the films which took Big B to the heights of superstardom. That means those who were rejected by Dharmendra became Amitabh’s fate.
don
Today ‘Don’ is not just a film but a cult franchise. But few people know that Dharmendra was the first choice of the makers for this. According to reports, this film was first offered to Dharmendra, Dev Anand and Jeetendra, but all three rejected it. Ultimately this role went to Amitabh Bachchan and he immortalized it. In 2006, Farhan Akhtar made its remake, starring Shahrukh Khan. Now Farhan Akhtar is preparing to make ‘Don 3’, in which Ranveer Singh will be in the lead role. Well, if Dharmendra had signed 1978’s ‘Don’, perhaps its history would have been different.
Also read: Dharmendra wanted to play this iconic character, not Veeru, Hema Malini changed the whole story
chain
Bobby Deol had told in an interview that his father Dharmendra had left ‘Zanjeer’ due to emotional reasons. Actually, Dharmendra’s cousin sister had told him that if he worked with Prakash Mehra, she would harm herself. In such a situation, Dharmendra chose family and left the film. This film of Salim-Javed later went to Amitabh Bachchan and his ‘Angry Young Man’ image was created from this film. Imagine, if Dharmendra had played this role, perhaps Amitabh’s career would have been completely different.
pride
After the tremendous success of ‘Sholay’, director Ramesh Sippy wanted the same star cast to be there in his next film ‘Shaan’. But Dharmendra had some discord and he rejected the film. According to DNA report, Hema Malini also rejected the offer of ‘Shaan’, which later went to Bindiya Goswami. Then in 1980, ‘Shaan’ was released and Amitabh Bachchan’s popularity got another big boost.
Also read: Before watching the final season of Stranger Things, know the whole story, the finale will be more fun to watch.
