Aamir Khan met Steven Spielberg in Germany to help convince Robert Zemeckis for Forrest Gump remake: ‘They’re close’

Aamir Khan will return to the big screen after four years with his film Laal Singh Chaddha that releases on August 11. The film reunites Aamir and his 3 Idiots co-star Kareena Kapoor. Directed by Advait Chandan, Laal Singh Chaddha is the official Hindi remake of the 1994 Tom Hanks film, Forrest Gump. In a new interview, Aamir spoke about spending close to eight years in acquiring the rights of the Hollywood classic that was directed by Robert Zemeckis. Read more: Aamir Khan says he did not retain ‘adult scenes from Forrest Gump’ for Laal Singh Chaddha

Aamir, who is busy with the promotions of Laal Singh Chaddha, recently opened up about meeting Hollywood director Steven Spielberg in Germany in connection to buying Forrest Gump rights for its official Hindi remake. The actor said he ‘went and met various people’ to get the rights of the Oscar-winning film, and even flew all the way to Berlin to meet Steven, in the hope that he might put in a word to Robert for Aamir.

When asked what took so long for him to acquire the rights of Forrest Gump, Aamir told journalist Baradwaj Rangan, “It is not nice to go through the details (now). We approached Paramount (Paramount Pictures), which is the company that owns and has made the original. Initially, they (Paramount) said you can take any rights from us, as that time Viacom (a multinational mass media conglomerate) was helping us; I am talking about 14 years ago. There was different management then. Not only in Paramount, but also in Viacom. That time for some reason it was not working out.”

The actor continued, “But I, being the kind of person that I am, I persevered. I went and met various people. I flew to Germany, to Berlin, and met Spielberg (Steven Spielberg) in the hope that he might put in a word to Mr Zemeckis (Robert Zemeckis); they are very close. Anyway, it took us around eight years finally, when we were given the rights.”

Laal Singh Chaddha is one of Bollywood’s biggest films of 2022. Kareena Kapoor and Aamir appeared on the latest episode of Karan Johar’s celebrity chat show, Koffee With Karan 7 and promoted it. During the show, Aamir revealed that Kareena was not the first choice for Rupa’s character in Laal Singh Chaddha. In fact, Kareena also gave a screen test to land the role. Apart from Aamir and Kareena, it also stars Mona Singh and Telugu actor Naga Chaitanya, who will be making his Bollywood debut.