Producer Karan Johar walks into the studio with his new intense look that he’s carrying for brand Agneepath. Minutes into the interview and Karan brightens the room up with his energy and amazing sense of humour. In a freewheeling chat, he talks about the new Agneepath version, ‘Chikni Chameli’ Katrina Kaif, supporting ‘forward-moving’ cinema and more..

How did director Karan Malhotra convince you to remake Agneepath, considering there’s always a little skepticism involved when you remake classics? Of course! Also, as you know, although the film didn’t work commercially at the box office in 1990, it had great viral value. In the next 20 years, it had collected a lot of love from audiences across the world. So there was a huge responsibility!

Karan Malhotra, who had worked with me during My Name is Khan, is a huge Agneepath fan, and we discussed remaking this film at that time. Even at that point, all I said to Karan was that we cannot emulate the legend – Amitabh Bachchan. So, we decided that the character Vijay Deenanath Chauhan, played by Hrithik Roshan should be absolutely different from the earlier protagonist. That is why we changed everything in terms of how we see Hrithik as a character, how we depict the world in the film. We completely removed Mithun Chakraborty’s track, and added a new character—played by Rishi Kapoor in the film.

Also, there’s no love story in the movie anymore. So Priyanka Chopra’s track is absolutely new! There are a lot of changes in terms of tonality, syntax and execution. So, does that mean that there’ll be no heavy-duty dialogues in this Agneepath? The kind of protagonist Hrithik’s playing—his Vijay Dinanath Chauhan—is a silent man.

Do you think Hrithik looks angrier than the angry young man? With the second theatrical promo that’s coming with Don 2, you’ll be able to see more of his character’s intensity and emotional anger. We’ve intentionally kept it slow and are doing it in stages. So, by the end of it when you do see the film, you’ll be prepared for the character Hrithik is playing.

With Agneepath, you’ve completely moved out of your territory. Did you have any initial hiccups about producing it? I am petrified! But I think nothing ventured, nothing gained. It’s amazing to see the kind of hype Agneepath has generated in the last couple of months, prior to the theatrical promo. I’ve never had so many distributors call me. I think I should make more massy films (laughs).