Ajay Devgn is one of Bollywood’s most enduring stars, a name that has carried weight at the box office for more than three decades. From intense dramas and action entertainers to character-driven performances, he has built a career on screen presence and versatility. But looking at his recent film choices, an uncomfortable question is beginning to emerge: is Ajay Devgn’s stardom increasingly depending on stories that have already worked in other industries, particularly South Indian cinema?
The biggest examples are Drishyam and Shaitaan. Drishyam was the Hindi adaptation of the Malayalam blockbuster of the same name, while Shaitaan was a remake of the Gujarati film Vash. Both films found success with Hindi audiences, and Ajay Devgn’s performances certainly added star power to the projects. But the stories themselves had already been tested and appreciated by audiences elsewhere. This raises an interesting question about Bollywood’s biggest stars: when a film has already proven its potential in another language, does casting a major Hindi star become the safer way to recreate that success?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with remaking a successful film. Indian cinema has always borrowed, adapted and reinterpreted stories across languages. A good remake can introduce an excellent story to a completely new audience. The real issue arises when remakes begin to look less like creative choices and more like a safety net. The pattern is hard to ignore: a film becomes a hit in the South or another regional industry, its rights are acquired, and suddenly a Hindi adaptation arrives with a major star at the centre. For someone with Ajay Devgn’s stature, the bigger question is whether playing it safe is really necessary anymore.
Ajay Devgn’s career, of course, cannot be reduced to remakes. He has delivered original successes and memorable performances across genres, proving time and again that he can carry films through his acting ability alone. Movies such as Raid, Tanhaji and several of his character-driven projects have shown that audiences are willing to follow him when the material feels fresh. That is precisely why expectations from him are so high. When a star has spent more than 30 years building credibility, fans naturally want to see him take risks rather than simply follow a formula that has already worked somewhere else.
The larger problem, however, goes beyond Ajay Devgn. Bollywood has increasingly relied on remakes, adaptations and established intellectual properties, while audiences have become far more exposed to films from South India and other regional industries. Thanks to OTT platforms and social media, viewers can watch original films long before their Hindi remakes arrive in theatres.
This makes the old remake strategy considerably more complicated. If audiences already know the story, the Hindi version has to offer something genuinely new through its performances, writing, treatment or execution. Simply adding a superstar may no longer be enough to recreate the original film’s magic.
Ajay Devgn certainly has no shortage of talent, experience or star power. What remains to be seen is whether his next phase will be defined by familiar formulas or by the courage to back genuinely original stories. A superstar’s biggest test is not whether he can make a successful remake, but whether audiences will turn up for a story they have never seen before simply because his name is attached to it. Ajay Devgn has already spent decades proving his stardom; perhaps the next challenge is proving that his star power can still make an original story a box-office event without borrowing its success from another industry.
