Ratan Tata, India’s legendary industrialist and philanthropist, passed away on October 9, 2024, leaving behind a remarkable legacy that shaped the nation’s most trusted brands from salt, tea, to cars. Known for his sharp business acumen and empathetic nature alike, Ratan Tata had once invested in a Bollywood thriller with Amitabh Bachchan in the lead role. The movie was co-produced by him under Tata BSS banner, and was made on a budget of Rs 9.50 crore. While the film had a lot of buzz around it, thanks to the leading couple – Bipasha Basu and John Abraham’s sizzling chemistry, and direction of Vikram Bhatt, it bombed at the box office miserably, failing to recover its cost.
Right ingredients, unfavourable outcome
The film, a remake of American psychological thriller film Fear, had all the right ingredients – a perfect premise, a dream star cast, and the director who could do justice to it, yet the movie failed to click with audience, who were let down by the cliche-ridden script and over-the-top acting. Amitabh Bachchan, despite giving a strong performance, could not carry the film alone, as the other aspects disappointed.
As a result, it could earn only Rs 4.25 crore at the domestic box office and in total Rs 7.96 crore including worldwide collections.
A thriller love story that failed to connect
An obsessive love story and thriller, Aetbaar revolved around the character of Dr Ranveer Malhotra, played by Amitabh Bachchan who would go to any lengths to protect his daughter Ria (Bipasha Basu) from her obsessive lover Aryan (John Abraham). The film’s climax scene features a confrontation between Amitabh and John’s character and had many emotional scenes between Amitabh and Bipasha.
Before the film’s release Bipasha had shared her excitement in a video interview with Lehren TV.
“I am nervous. I feel I am going to learn much more after this film. I am going to be much more confident. I don’t think I will be scared to work with anybody once I have worked with Amitji. I am very excited. Most of the film is with him so its a big test for me,” she had said.
However, the movie turned out to be a dud at the box office, making Ratan Tata’s only Bollywood venture unsuccessful.
“This movie does keep you watching. Unlike the typical Bollywood movie, the story moves along rapidly in this one. So even though you can predict exactly what’s coming next, while the traditional Hindi movie takes its sweet old time in getting there, this one gets right to the point,” a user review read.
“With a tag line like “Love can kill”, I expected some thrills out of this movie which had some talented names attached to it. Sadly what I got was a damp squib. This particular director has a habit of borrowing heavily from English films for most of his movies. In this case the Marky mark movie “Fear”, a tale of a obsessed lover,” another one wrote.
Amitabh Bachchan’s chance meeting with Tata
While Amitabh Bachchan hasn’t been quoted saying anything about the movie, he had shared memories of meeting Ratan Tata once during a flight, when he business tycoon failed to recognise him. That was the time when Amitabh was at the beak of his career and everybody recognised him except Tata who was sitting right next to him reading a newspaper. When Bachchan did strike a conversation with him, the entrepreneur revealed that he didn’t watch Bollywood movies, and that was when the megastar realised how humble he is as a person.