'James Cameron of India': Steven Spielberg's introduction of Aamir Khan to Tom Hanks

Bollywood's perfectionist superstar, Aamir Khan, has established himself as one of the most popular and influential actors of Indian cinema. He has a large global following, especially in China, and has been described by Newsweek as "the biggest movie star" in the world. Aamir's films like Dangal (2016) and Secret Superstar (2017) had done excellently well in China, with the former grossing over Rs 1,000 crore at the Chinese box office.

The list of Aamir's global admirers also includes Tom Hanks. The filmmaker was introduced to the 3 Idiots (2009) actor by acclaimed Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg in 2014-15 in Germany.

It so happened that Aamir was keen to remake Forrest Gump (1994) whose rights were with director Robert Zemeckis. However, Robert refused to give the rights to Aamir, so the latter decided to meet Spielberg who shared a good rapport with Robert Zemeckis. By doing this, Aamir was hoping that Spielberg would convince Robert to let him remake the film in Hindi.

Aamir Khan travelled all the way to Germany to meet Steven Spielberg who was filming Bridge Of Spies with Tom Hanks at that time. Spielberg was overjoyed at meeting Aamir and introduced him to Hanks as ‘James Cameron of India’.

He went on to add that alike James Cameron, Aamir Khan has aced the game of breaking his own box office records with every subsequent release. Spielberg specifically mentioned Aamir’s 2009 film 3 Idiots and revealed that he has watched it thrice.

Post the meeting, Aamir discussed about Robert Zemeckis with Spielberg and was told that Zemeckis was reluctant to meet Aamir as he did not want to say ‘no’ to actor's request for acquiring the rights of Forrest Gump.

Seven years on, Aamir kept trying to get the rights of the film and he finally did succeeded. The superstar features in the Hindi remake of Forrest Gump which has been titled as Laal Singh Chaddha.

Also featuring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Mona Singh and Naga Chaitanya, the film is slated to release on 11 August 2022.