10 Times When Hollywood Got Inspired By Bollywood!

Most of the international fraternity that looks at our Hindi Film Industry from a distance has this notion that most of our work is inspired from different Hollywood sources. While they certainly have the grounds to think that way, what needs to be told is even Bollywood has inspired Hollywood on a lot of occasions.

Did you know the popular Hollywood flick Leap Year was a straight inspiration from Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met? There have been a number of occasions when even the greats of the game like Martin Scorsese have admittedly been inspired from Indian Cinema. So is it just Bollywood that takes inspiration from Hollywood?

It’s time to break the notion! Here are 10 times when Bollywood inspired Hollywood bigtime:

Bollywood was forward enough to subject a film on sperm donation even before Hollywood.  Vince Vaughn starrer Delivery Man in 2013 had a similar premise that Ayushmann Khurrana starrer Vicky Donor was based on. However the film is said to have been a remake of a French-Canadian film titled Starbuck, it had a strong resemblance to Shoojit Sircar’s Hindi directorial.

One of the rare ‘official’ remakes of an Indian film, The Common Man starring Ben Kingsley was based on Neeraj Pandey’s immensely appreciated A Wednesday. The Hollywood film was made by the Sri Lankan filmmaker Chandran Rutnam.

Three years after the release of this Yash Chopra classic, Hollywood came up with the remake that was conveniently titled into the exact translation of the original as ‘Fear’. The film was quite evidently inspired from the Hindi version with a lot of scenes coming straight out of SRK starrer.

Almost 40 years after the release of Raj Kapoor directed Sangam, Hollywood’s Pearl Harbor was found to have been heavily inspired from the Hindi film. A love triangle with two best friends in the fray with a similar backdrop, Pearl Harbour was like a modern Sangam.

With a strikingly similar plot from Rangeela about a girl confusing her love between her friend and a film star, ‘Win A Date With Tad Hamilton’ was pretty much based on this Aamir Khan starrer. However, the treatment of the film was quite different.

While the story and setting of both these films are not similar, Kill Bill’s action sequences have been inspired from Kamal Haasan’s Abhay. Film’s director Quentin Tarentino has himself come on record to reveal this fact.

While the word official hasn’t been used for this Hollywood drama, film’s complete premise seems to have been lifted from Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met. Even the characters designed are very much similar to what Kareena and Shahid were in Jab We Met.

Satyajit Ray’s is a name big enough to get inspired from! His film Charulata greatly inspired filmmaker Martin Scorsese to make a similar but a modern version titled 40 Shades of Blue. Based on the life of a woman in loneliness despite marriage, both films had similar narration.

While Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya itself was a remake of the old Hollywood film Cactus Flower, Just Go With It seemed like a newer version of the Salman Khan starrer where Jenifer Aniston played the role of Sushmita Sen.

Though narrated with a different premise and a different angle, The Other Woman starring Cameron Diaz still seemed like being inspired from Ranveer Singh’s Ladies V Ricky Bahl. Three ladies going out on a mission to teach a man some lesson, rings a bell doesn’t it?