Ekta Kapoor confirms remake of ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’

Producer Ekta Kapoor has confirmed she is set to remake her groundbreaking 2000 daily soap “Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi”, teasing that show’s lead star Smriti Irani, now a politician, may return.

The show, which ran for about eight years between 2000 and 2008, was co-produced by Shobha Kapoor and Ekta Kapoor under their banner Balaji Telefilms. It ran for a total of 1,833 episodes.

“Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi”, which defined the dynamics of Indian family dramas in the early 2000s, revolves around Irani’s Tulsi, who was the ideal daughter-in-law of the wealthy Virani family.

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Kapoor, who tasted massive success with the Star Plus series, said she hopes to hit the 2000-episode milestone with the remake.

“I’m re-making the biggest show I ever made. It gave me an identity, and then I had to fight a lot to make other things. But it became what I was known for. But because of my problems as a production house with another big corporate, the programme ended (with) 160 episodes less before it completed its big 2000 (episode milestone).

“The love we have received for this programme has brought everyone who is attached to it back to complete just those episodes to reach that 2000 (number). The show deserves that,” she said on day two of India Global Forum here on Tuesday evening.

What can fans expect from the remake version of “Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi”?

“We’re bringing politics into entertainment or a politician,” the producer said in an apparent reference to Irani, a former cabinet minister in the ruling BJP government.

Kapoor said the popular show had “an authentic nature”, which was in stark contrast from the content being produced today.

“If we slip from our authenticity, we might not cater to anyone. So, let’s do what we believe in, give it those episodes of nostalgia, not real action, but a nostalgic form of storytelling that people remember from their younger days, and come back just for that, and not make it a part of the number game, not make it struggle to be a form of content that is being made today,” she added.

The producer, who has also backed films such as “The Dirty Picture”, “Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai”, “Shootout at Lokhandwala”, and “The Sabarmati Report”, said the dull performance of Hindi films at the box office is a “cyclical” phenomenon.

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“When there were no movies in the theatre, old movies got a chance to (re)release, and music had worked because they were played so often in the last few years. People were like, ‘Wow, what an amazing movie’,” she said.

“Now, when the buyers have become fewer, people are again going to come into the market, make stories they believe in. Stars will charge lesser, eventually those movies will do well, the buyers will increase…” she added.