Ram Gopal Varma shares ‘ironic’ magazine cover that declared Amitabh Bachchan ‘finished’ in 1990

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Ram Gopal Varma, who has worked with Amitabh Bachchan in films such Sarkar, gave a shoutout to the megastar's enduring career in his signature cheeky way. He shared the cover of a now-defunct magazine which sounded the death knell of Amitabh's career back in 1990.

RGV's tweet

Ram Gopal Varma took to his X handle on Wednesday and shared a magazine cover from a 1990 edition off Illustrated Weekly, which had a picture of Amitabh Bachchan in a beige outfit leaning his right hand against a wall and the text “FINISHED!” stamped across the breadth. The filmmaker wrote in the caption, “34 years back ILLUSRATED WEEKLY magazine STATED this on its COVER and now ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY is FINISHED and ⁦@SrBachchan is SOARING (biceps and laughing-with-tears emojis).”

The internet was surprised to see Ram Gopal Varma appreciate Amitabh Bachchan as back in 2011, he had abused the megastar on Twitter for doing a film like Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap. An X user commented, “Positive tweet from Ram Gopal Varma. It should be a rare phenomenon.”

However, many others echoed the director's sentiment. One of them wrote, “Discipline in life and dedication to your craft , can keep you at high, year after year..… @SrBachchan is a living example of that.” “RGV, What a timely quote!!!,” said another. “I think the context was different, it meant his career as a leading star was over and this flop heralded that….,” stated a third comment.

Amitabh's career downfall and resurrection

Amitabh Bachchan, who enjoyed a historic run as the Angry Young Man in the 1970s, had a major career slump in the 1980s. The year that he was declared “finished” by the magazine, Amitabh's revenge saga Agneepath had released. While the film wasn't received well back then, it did fetch him a National Award the next year. It also became a cult overtime and was even remade in 2012 by Siddharth P Malhotra with Hrithik Roshan playing the iconic role of Vijay Deenanath Chauhan.

A string of flops followed Agneepath in the 1990s. Amitabh finally regained his stature in the new millenium with Kaun Banega Crorepati and Mohabbatein. He has consistently been a force to reckon with since then. His latest movie, Kalki 2898 AD, earned over ₹1,000 crore at the box office. He'll next be seen in Section 84 and Vettaiyan.