Thread by @IWTKQuiz

June 15th will mark 20 years since the release of an iconic film - Lagaan.

A thread highlighting some interesting stories about a very very special movie. #20YearsOfLagaan

Lagaan was @AshGowariker’s third foray into direction after his earlier two movies – Pehla Nasha and Baazi.

Baazi is famous for the “Item number” by Aamir Khan.

Pehla Nasha had Aamir and SRK in the same movie with some cringe worthy puns -

After the box office failures of Baazi, @AshGowariker’s confidence in his own ability to direct a film had fallen.

His first 2 films were what was considered “safe” but backfired, so he wanted to do a completely different film.

He thought of a story line where a key battle is resolved by a cricket match. He gave a 4 line narration to Aamir who asked him not to waste time on this.

Ashutosh decided to make it a full script. He worked on the script while working on the famous TV series CID.

One fine day he bumped into Aamir and asked him time to listen to his now complete script. Aamir remembering the story, told no before the narration itself.

Ashutosh requested Aamir to listen to the script at least before telling no. Aamir agreed to hear Ashutosh.

As the narration started, Aamir Khan was more and more drawn towards the story. At the end he was blown away by the script and told Ashutosh that he would act if a suitable producer was found.

Aamir and Ashutosh had a good relationship. They first worked together in a Ketan Mehta film called Holi in 1984.

This was well before Aamir Khan was launched in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak.

Since finding a producer was difficult, Aamir Khan decided to take the plunge and become a producer.

And one of the first people he got on board was his then wife - Reena Dutta - a complete novice about film making.

Once the green light was given, auditions were held for all other characters.

After going through multiple options for the role of Gauri, Ashutosh decided to look for a new face and found @iamgracysingh.

She had done a few TV roles - most memorably in the series Amanat.

She auditioned along with other actors and her audition included dancing to "Hoto pe aisee baat daba ke" from Jewel Thief.

Similary Rachel Shelly was asked to perform "Sound of Music" for her audition.

Once Bhuj was selected as the location for the village Champaner, an entire village was erected from scratch.

An entire apartment complex was taken up for the huge crew descending from Bombay to make this film.

This complex would be destroyed during the 2001 earthquake.

An interesting tidbit - the person in charge of the security was @RonitBoseRoy. He was providing security to the Lagaan team.

Lagaan's crew included Kiran Rao - who was an assistant director on this film. Kiran Rao would also play a cameo in another Aamir Khan film - Dil Chahta Hai.

Kiran Rao would later marry Aamir Khan.

Aamir Khan wanted Bhuvan to have a moustache. His reasoning was sound - no rain in Champaner, how can this guy shave every day? He wanted to play the character with some facial hair.

Ashutosh Gowariker rejected the idea.

AK Hangal was the eldest member of the crew and was injured during the shooting. Instead of going back to Mumbai and resting, he continued to shoot his scenes.

He was brought to the sets in a stretcher.

The stretcher continued to follow this crew. Ashutosh Gowariker had a case of slip disc and had to be bed ridden. Instead of delaying the shoot - he continued to direct lying down.

Medical injuries continued to haunt the shooting schedule. The actor was the first wicket to fall, but the scream of anguish was real. He had dislocated his shoulder in the process.

Most of the crowd reaction seen in the movie was shot on one day with over 10,000 extras driven in from neighbouring villages.

Most of the crowd happy shots are their reaction to Aamir Khan singing "Aati Kya Khandala".

The first 20 over international match in India might have taken place near Bhuj where an English team took on an Indian team on 26th March, 2000.

Aamir Khan led the Indian crew, but they lost the game.

None of the trailers or the ads on tv about the film spoke about cricket.

So when Aamir Khan showed @sachin_rt and @RaviShastriOfc before the release, they were surprised.

Their reaction when the first wicket fell as described by Aamir Khan.

In another unusual move, the makers released a comic book version of the movie.

It must be the only book with an intermission in it. While reading do we stop to buy expensive popcorn?

Lagaan started an interesting trend - bollywood movies becoming B-school case studies. Lagaan was picked up by IIM-Indore for its leadership module.

Wondering if the most famous IIM Indore alumni @sai_ganesh even did this course. We dont see him using anything from Lagaan.

Lagaan was a monumental film in scale and vision and needed an exemplary team to pull it off and they did.

Thank You @AshGowariker, @Javedakhtarjadu, @arrahman, Aamir Khan, @iamgracysingh and others for a movie that gave us a feeling of being at a stadium..

Most of the images used in this thread was picked from an unbelievable documentary about the making of the film called Chale Chalo - the lunacy of film making.

This is available on netflix.