Salman Khan's Sultan Was Initially Titled Dangal, Discloses Ali Abbas Zafar

Ali Abbas Zafar’s upcoming flick Sultan starring superstar Salman Khan is one of the most anticipated flicks of the year. However, not a lot of people know that the long awaited movie was initially titled something else. Recently, the Mere Brother Ki Dulhan maker revealed that the first draft of the sports-drama was called Dangal, which means a wrestling competition.

It would be interesting here to note that Aamir Khan’s upcoming flick, directed by Nitesh Tiwari, is titled Dangal. Coincidentally, the biographical sports drama is also based on wrestling. While Sultan is scheduled for an Eid release, Aamir’s next will hit silver screen this Christmas.

While talking to DNA India, Ali disclosed, “It’s bizarre when I wrote this script, I had no idea that there was any other film that was ever going to get made on wrestling. I wrote this film in 2012, it’s almost four years since. And I can tell you now that the first draft of Sultan was called Dangal. The first 10 pages, which I mailed to Adi (Aditya Chopra), was titled Dangal”.

Sultan is the name of the protagonist in the film.  Ali feels Dangal was a more suitable title as when he travelled to Haryana in 2012 for research, he found locals addressing wrestling matches as Dangal really interesting. The filmmaker also had to clear a hurdle while picking Sultan as the movie's title.

“Also, the title Sultan was not with us. It was with Ramesh Taurani”, revealed Ali, adding, “But Taurani gave the title rights up for Salman’s sake”. The movie will star Anushka Sharma as the female lead.

Source: i.ndtvimg.com