Over twenty years since its release, ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ director Nikkhil Advani thinks modern audiences would interpret the film through an entirely new lens. The filmmaker recently opened up about his 2003 debut, touching on the movie’s finale, the fan-favourite chemistry between Aman and Rohit, and how today’s younger viewers engage with the film’s comedy and emotional beats, even suggesting that a potential remake could lean into a romantic angle between the characters originally played by Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan.
Nikkhil Advani calls SRK and Saif’s dynamic a bromance that hasn’t aged well
When speaking with Mid-day, Advani described the bond shared by Shah Rukh’s Aman and Saif’s Rohit as a classic bromance at its core. That said, he was candid about certain elements of the film that haven’t aged as gracefully, particularly the recurring gag built around Kantaben’s homophobic suspicions about the two men. This subplot, he noted, now makes some viewers uneasy, including his own daughter, whose reaction highlighted just how significantly public discourse around sexuality, representation, and comedy has shifted in the years since the film first hit screens. In his own words, Advani said, “It was a bromance.”
Nikkhil Advani says the real ending of the film was never about the girl
He also shared that, emotionally, the film’s true climax for him had nothing to do with the love story on the surface, it was the moment Aman and Rohit struck their private agreement that felt like the real ending, even as Naina, portrayed by Preity Zinta, remained a pivotal figure throughout. Interestingly, he pointed out that this very scene now draws a different kind of reaction from female viewers, who find themselves questioning Naina’s place in that moment. As Advani put it, “The film ended for me when Aman and Rohit made a pact with each other. That pact involved a woman, and that woman was standing outside in the corridor and today most girls wonder why the hell was she standing outside when those two are talking the whole shit.“
Nikkhil Advani open to exploring a romantic angle between Aman and Rohit in a remake
Advani was candid about the fact that the kind of emotional payoff ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ delivered would be a tough sell for today’s audiences. In his words, “I will never be able to get away with that kind of ending of Kal Ho Naa Ho ever again.” But rather than seeing that as a limitation, the director appeared open to what a fresh reimagining could unlock — specifically, the possibility of giving the Aman-Rohit relationship a more explicitly romantic dimension. As he put it, “If we were to remake Kal Ho Naa Ho today, it would be interesting to explore that.”
About ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’, Nikkhil Advani’s debut directorial
‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ released in 2003 and was Nikkhil Advani’s debut film as a director. The film was produced by Karan Johar under Dharma Productions and had Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta in the lead roles, while Jaya Bachchan, Sushma Seth, Reema Lagoo, Delnaaz Irani and Lillete Dubey played supporting characters. The story centres around Naina, who falls for Aman, who is suffering from a terminal illness, while her friend Rohit secretly has feelings for her. The film was among the biggest hits of that year and even today remains one of the most popular and loved romantic films in Bollywood.