Disco Dancer, directed by Babbar Subhash, featured Mithun Chakraborty in the lead role.
In 2021, it was revealed that Aamir Khan’s Ghajini wasn’t the first film to make history.
It is a dream of many actors to have a Rs 100 crore movie in their filmography. To make it happen, the producers and distributors leave no stone unturned. Earlier, according to Forbes India, Aamir Khan was the first Bollywood actor to make an entry to the 100 crore club with his 2008 film Ghajini which was followed by 3 Idiots which collected Rs 339 crore worldwide.
Salman Khan holds the record of 16 consecutive Rs 100 crore films. Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan recently recorded to become the first Hindi film to collect Rs 100 crore worldwide on its opening day. However, in 2021 it was revealed that Aamir Khan’s Ghajini wasn’t the first film to make history but it was Mithun Chakraborty’s 1982 film Disco Dancer to do so. This was claimed in the biography of the yesteryear superstar.
According to PTI, the journalist turned filmmaker Ram Kamal Mukherjee in Mithun Chakraborty: The Dada of Bollywood wrote that the film had shattered the record of the 1975 film Sholay and established Mithun as a superstar in the Hindi film industry.
Mukherjee also mentioned in one of the chapters that Disco Dancer introduced India to the world of disco and the audience just went berserk. He also said that the film was a roaring success overseas too, including in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, the Middle East, Turkey and West and East Africa.
An excerpt from the book reads, “In fact, Disco Dancer was the first Indian film to gross Rs 100 crore worldwide. The music of the movie was a huge hit and won many an accolade. Disco Dancer also saw the birth of the famous Mithun-Bappi Lahiri collaboration and the two worked together in an astonishing number of films, many of which turned out to be superhits over the years including Dance Dance (1987), Guru (1989), Prem Pratigya (1989), Dalaal (1993), and numerous others.”
Disco Dancer was directed and produced by Babbar Subhash and it was based on a conventional rags-to-riches story of a street performer, essayed by Mithun Chakraborty. The film was a musical blockbuster with its songs gaining much popularity overseas in its year.
