When Ratan Tata ventured into Bollywood with Amitabh Bachchan; film was a disaster

Indian tycoon Ratan Tata, former chairman of Tata Group, passed away in Mumbai, on Wednesday, at the age of 86. But do you know? Bollywood was only one of his several endeavours that the industrialist and philanthropist couldn’t achieve success in.

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Ratan Tata and his Tata Group, India’s largest conglomerate, forayed across many industries and maintained numerous successful ventures under the umbrella, but if there is one industry that the tycoon remained distant from for the longest time, was Bollywood – India’s beloved and prominent film industry.

Even when he did, with Amitabh Bachchan starrer ‘Aetbaar’, in 2004, it was a major disaster.

The romantic psychological thriller ‘Aetbaar’, directed by Vikram Bhatt, featured a star-studded cast, with the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, John Abraham and Bipasha Basu, and was produced by Tata, under his banner Tata BSS.

However, the ensemble cast of the title, inspired by James Foley’s Hollywood thriller ‘Fear’, failed to save the film and it made a meagre INR8 crores in its lifetime collection, against the budget of INR9.5 crores. Apart from being a Box Office bomb, the only film of Tata as a producer failed to impress the critics as well, with many slamming it for its done-to-death theme.

The late tycoon never forayed into Bollywood after the disaster.

Also Read: Amitabh Bachchan’s iconic film that was rejected by Dev Anand, Jitendra

For the unversed, Ratan Naval Tata, Padma Vibhushan and Padma Bhushan (India’s second and third highest civilian honours) recipient, breathed his last on Wednesday night, at south Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital, where he had been admitted in the Intensive Care Unit since earlier this week, with age-related ailments.