Hyderabad: The action crime drama, Ghulam completed 23 years of release on Saturday. The Vikram Bhatt film starring Aamir Khan and Rani Mukerji in the lead was one of the biggest hits of the year upon release in 1998. Produced by Vishesh Films, the film remains one of the bests in Aamir's filmography but things would have been different if Vikram had not replaced Mahesh Bhatt as director.
Filming for Ghulam began in June 1997, and around the same time next year, the film released in theaters to great response. According to reports, the filming began with Mahesh Bhatt at the helm, but, when Aamir saw that the former is more interested in reading a book than supervising shot, he expressed his dissatisfaction as an actor and even suggested that he wouldn't mind walking out of the project paying whatever loss his exit would cost the makers.
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The Bhatt brothers then decided to rope in Vikram to direct Ghulam, who had by then proved his metal with the 1996 released thriller, Fareb.
There is another story about Mahesh being replaced as Ghulam director by his nephew Vikram. According to the popular view in the industry, Vikram had never replaced Mahesh as he was already ghost-directing the film while Mahesh would relax and turn the pages of book on the set. But the key point in this version of the story is also Aamir who was keen on Vikram getting credited as the director of the film since he was the one who was doing all the work. The actor had also hinted that he will bow out of the project if Vikram is not given his due and that is when the Bhatt brothers agreed to the actor's condition.
Ghulam was a remake of Vishesh Films' debut production Kabzaa which was inspired by the 1954 released Hollywood film On the Waterfront.
