Aamir Khan's Dangal had five climaxes, reveals director Nitesh Tiwari: ‘It was very alarming for…’

Aamir Khan's sports drama film Dangal has become the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time. In the film, Aamir plays Mahavir Singh Phogat, a wrestler-turned-coach from Haryana who trains his four daughters to become wrestling champions. To cast the Phogat sisters, the filmmakers held extensive auditions to find fresh faces. Zaira Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar played the younger Phogat sisters, while Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra portrayed the older sisters, Geeta and Babita.

Interestingly, the writers also went the extra mile to craft a compelling narrative. In a surprising move, they penned not one, but five alternative endings to the film, ensuring a lasting impact on audiences. Director Nitesh Tiwari revealed that while writing Dangal with Piyush Gupta, Shreyas Jain, and Nikhil Mehroth, they faced a challenge. Since the audience knew Geeta would win the gold medal, they needed to make the story more engaging.

"It was very alarming for us as writers as the audience knew that Geeta was going to win the gold. Now how do we make it a little difficult or different for the audience? So when what is known, how becomes important,” he said in an interview with Komal Nahta. Tiwari further explained that they decided to keep Mahavir Singh out of the finals, and wrote five different versions of how that could happen. This twist made the audience wonder not if Geeta would win, but how she would win without her father's presence.

 “We decided Mahavir Singh cannot be there, he has to be outside, So we wrote five different versions of what can keep him out. And then we finally agreed to this one as it was paying off for the national anthem. So audience will not think that Geeta will win gold but they will think about how will she win when Mahavir Singh is not there. That was the whole idea to keep him out of the finals.” he added.

Meanwhile, Dangal (2016)was a commercial success, setting several records at the box office. It was produced by Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao under Aamir Khan Productions with Siddharth Roy Kapur under The Walt Disney Company India.