Why Rajkumar Hirani and Aamir Khan Changed ‘PK’ Before Its Release

Aamir Khan has revealed that the second half of PK was rewritten before the film’s release after he and director Rajkumar Hirani noticed thematic similarities with OMG: Oh My God!. Despite their concerns about the revised version, the film went on to become a major commercial success.

Speaking to Variety India, Aamir said he approaches both success and failure analytically, treating every underperforming film as an opportunity to understand what did or did not connect with audiences.

“The first thing I do is I accept it. It’s very important to accept what has happened. I feel when a film doesn’t work, the bottom line is simple — that it didn’t work,” he said.

The actor described his process of evaluating films as “like solving a puzzle,” adding that he often discusses a project’s creative strengths and weaknesses with directors before release.

“You’re trying to figure it out. Which is why one of the things I do with my directors very often is I discuss the film with them before the release. Did we end up making what we set out to make? How successful do we think we are before the release? And that’s a very important discussion to have because then you’re able to judge the film creatively,” Aamir said.

Why ‘PK’ Was Changed Before Release

Aamir said those discussions became especially important during the making of PK. According to him, Hirani had originally written a different version of the film’s latter half, but the team reconsidered it after noticing overlaps in themes with OMG: Oh My God, which had released before PK.

“The plot was totally different, because here there is an alien, and it’s all totally different, but some of the themes were similar,” Aamir said. He recalled Hirani insisting that changes were necessary to keep the film distinct.

“I remember Raju reacting and saying, ‘Sometimes that happens, but we must change our second half.’ So we changed the second half,” he said.

Aamir admitted that neither he nor Hirani were fully satisfied with the revised version before release.

“Before the release, we were not totally happy with the film because the original second half was slightly different from what we have made. But this was the best we could have done. Luckily, the film worked, and it was a big success,” he said.

Released in 2014, PK starred Anushka Sharma alongside Aamir Khan. The cast also included Sushant Singh Rajput, Boman Irani, Saurabh Shukla and Sanjay Dutt. The film drew attention for its satirical commentary on religion and blind faith while emerging as a box-office success.

Aamir also reflected on scripts more broadly, mentioning that repeated script changes affected the final version of Thugs of Hindostan.

The actor was last seen in Sitaare Zameen Par alongside Genelia Deshmukh. His production house has also backed Lahore 1947 starring Sunny Deol. He also made a cameo appearance in Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos and produced Ek Din starring Junaid Khan and Sai Pallavi.