Amid reports suggesting that Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal 5 would adapt the 1980 classic Do Aur Do Paanch, producer Deepak Mukut has set the record straight. Mukut, who owns the remake rights to the film, confirms that he, and not Shetty who is developing a new version of Do Aur Do Paanch, and intends to take it on floors soon.

“I don’t know where or how the news of someone else doing Do Aur Do Paanch came from. I had to issue a public notice to prevent anyone else from remaking it. I am very serious about doing the film. For nearly ten years, I wanted to remake it with Bobby Deol and Abhishek Bachchan,” says Mukut.

The original film, directed by Rakesh Kumar, featured Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor as two small-time crooks posing as schoolteachers in a plot to kidnap a wealthy businessman’s son. Hema Malini played a genuine teacher at the same school, adding romance and comic tension to the caper.

Interestingly, when Do Aur Do Paanch released in 1980, it turned out to be a rare box-office disappointment in Amitabh Bachchan’s otherwise golden run. The film’s performance was affected by its proximity to Suhaag, directed by Manmohan Desai, which also starred Bachchan and Kapoor and had already become a major success.

Meanwhile, industry buzz suggests that a separate project may pair Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar in the comedy space for the first time. The two actors have collaborated on several action films in the past, beginning with Suhaag, directed by Kuku Kohli (not to be confused with Desai’s earlier film of the same name).

For now, however, Deepak Mukut remains firm: the remake of Do Aur Do Paanch is very much his project and he plans to bring the classic caper back to the big screen on his own terms.

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