Mela director Dharmesh Darshan said he was offered a Hollywood film after the success of Raja Hindustani. The Hollywood movie starred Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai.

Dharmesh Darshan said he was offered a Hollywood film starring Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai.

After making the superhit film Raja Hindustani, starring Aamir Khan and Karisma Kapoor, director Dharmesh Darshan had Hollywood at his doorstep but the director claims that he had to refuse the offer because at that time, he was right in the middle of shooting Mela and Dhadkan. The proposed Hollywood film starred Shah Rukh Khan with Aishwarya Rai, and was his golden ticket to making it big around the world.

In a chat with Lehren Retro, Dharmesh said that he got an offer from Hollywood producer Ashok Amritraj when he was shooting for Mela, as the producer had handpicked him to make a Hollywood film with SRK and Aishwarya but they had one condition. Dharmesh recalled that he was asked to leave everything midway and be in Hollywood for one year but for him, this wasn’t possible at the time.

‘I was obviously happy that Hollywood has seen me and I’m not doing offbeat cinema. That means my films worked internationally, pan India and globally. I had no PR, no talking big,’ he shared. Dharmesh recalled that at the time, he was in the middle of shooting for Mela and Dhadkan, which starred Aamir Khan and Twinkle Khanna, and Shilpa Shetty, Suniel Shetty and Akshay Kumar respectively. ‘My parents booth fell ill at the same time. I was committed to Mela and Dhadkan,’ he said

Dharmesh Darshan let go of the offer because he believed that ‘too many careers were at stake’ with these films. ‘I said Bollywood has given me so much success, I can’t ditch it. There are too many careers at stake in both these films. If I don’t do these films, it’s not easy to replace me as a director,’ he said. Dharmesh then gave the example of director Shekhar Kapur and said, ‘Shekhar Kapur, such a good director, but he left so many films incomplete and went to Hollywood. I didn’t do that. Because I love Hindi cinema.’

Dharmesh’s last directorial was the 2006 film Aap Ki Khatir which starred Priyanka Chopra and Akshaye Khanna.