Amitabh Bachchan , Shashi Kapoor 's 'Deewar' has now completed 50 years. The film is considered a cult and quite iconic - from its story to dialogues and Bachchan's angry young man avatar! But did you know that initially Rajesh Khanna was cast for the film? Screenwriters Javed Akhtar and Salim Khan, popularly known as Salim-Javed are considered legendary and have given Hindi cinema some cult classics. As they wrote 'Deewar', they were not convinced with Khanna's casting but had revealed once that the producer of the film Gulshan Rai wanted to cast him. At that point in time, Rajesh Khanna was a huge superstar and hence the producer had cast him. But Salim-Javed were adamant that only Bachchan was apt for that role.

During an old interview with Lehren, Salim Khan had spoken about Khanna's casting for 'Deewar'. He had said, "There is something like ideal and compromising casting. We strongly felt that Amitabh Bachchan was the ideal casting for the fil. Rajesh Khanna was signed by Deewaar’s producer Gulshan Rai but we very strongly felt that the story’s right casting is Amitabh Bachchan and we insisted that if you want to make this film then only Amitabh will work in this. Maybe the film would have worked with someone else but it wouldn’t have been an ideal casting. It would have been a compromise.”

In another interview, Javed Akhtar had also said that it was very difficult to work with Khanna. Secondly, the kind of movies they were making were more suitable for Bachchan. During a chat with the SAM YouTube channel, Javed Akhtar recalled that though they had collaborated with Rajesh Khanna in movies like Andaz and Haathi Mere Saathi, they realised that they cannot work with him. "There came a time when we realised that it would be difficult for us to work together. He was surrounded by so many people, so many sycophants and yes men, it was difficult to work with him. So, we parted ways." He further added, "The kind of films that we were writing, and the kind of films that we had in our mind, were much more suitable for an actor like Amitabh Bachchan.”

As 'Deewar' completed 50 years, Javed Akhtar took to X (formerly Twitter) and wrote, "Deewaar was released on 21st January 1975 . Theek pachaas saal pehle . How time passes so quietly and so quickly. It is happening all the time but remains a wonder!!"