There are films which do not make noise at the box office at the time of their release but receive overwhelming appreciation years later and become cult. Andaz Apna Apna is one of those films. The Rajkumar Santoshi directorial is loved and appreciated widely today.
Looking at Salman and Aamir’s characters of warring buddies, the prevalent notion has been that the film was based on cartoon characters of Tom and Jerry. Rajkumar Santoshi wanted to make a human version of these extremely popular cartoon characters who can not see each other eye to eye but can also not live without each other.
But it has been recently revealed that the film was actually inspired from the widely popular Archie comics. During a recent chat with film critic Rajeev Masand, director Rajkumar Santoshi said, “Archie comics was in my mind while making the film. Aamir’s character was supposed to be Reggie Mantle who thinks he is too smart. On the other hand, Salman’s character was inspired from Archie who is gullible and kind. The photography, costumes, bright colours all were to bring in a very comic book kind of feel. That was my idea.”
He also revealed other trivial information about the film like Manish Koirala was also being considered for Karisma Kapoor’s role as the latter had some date issues but things were sorted out and Karisma was signed.
Andaz Apna Apna has achieved a cult status over the years. The film stars Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Raveena Tandon, and Karisma Kapoor in the lead roles while Mehmood, Govinda and Juhi Chawla make guest appearances.
The film was released in 1994 and saw a moderate success. The lack of publicity and tough competition from other films of that year including Laadla, Mohra, Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, Krantiveer and 1942: A Love Story were reasons for its average business. All of these films were very strong in their box office presence and Andaz Apna Apna, belonging to a different genre, could not compete well. It has however, in subsequent years, achieved a cult classic status among Hindi audiences.