Development Aditya Chopra wanted to make a film similar to the Hollywood film
Cape Fear (1991) starring
Robert De Niro. The film was to be directed by Naresh Malhotra, an assistant of
Yash Chopra, with
Raveena Tandon,
Deepak Malhotra, and Saahil Chaddha in the lead roles. However, Yash decided to take over the project, and eventually changed the casting. The film's title
Darr was suggested to Chopra by his other son
Uday Chopra (who worked as an assistant director in the film) and
Hrithik Roshan.
Casting Sridevi, who had previously collaborated with Chopra in
Chandni (1989) and
Lamhe (1991), was first offered the role of Kiran. The role was planned much like her previous roles in
Chandni and
Lamhe. However, she wanted Kiran to be the obsessed lover instead of the victim; Chopra refused this change of plot, causing Sridevi to opt out.
Madhuri Dixit was offered the role next, but she refused due to scheduling conflicts.
Aishwarya Rai was
screen tested for the role, but ultimately could do not the film as she competing for the
Miss World Pageant at the time.
Divya Bharti was then signed, however, she was replaced with
Juhi Chawla at
Aamir Khan's request.
Sanjay Dutt was the original choice for the antagonist Rahul Mehra, however was unable to sign the film due to his conviction of illegal possession of arms.
Sudesh Berry was considered for the role, but was rejected after a screen test. The role was then offered to
Ajay Devgn, who declined as he was uncomfortable playing a negative character at that stage of his career.
Aamir Khan, who had worked with Chopra in
Parampara the same year, was signed. However, he was removed from the project after he asked for a joint narration with
Sunny Deol. Khan's reasoning for this was that since he and Deol were two leading actors, they could hear their roles and if they were both satisfied, no ego hassles would happen henceforth. Furthermore, Khan was also unhappy with the way Deol's character beat Rahul up in the climax. Following Aamir's exit,
Shah Rukh Khan was cast as Rahul after Chopra's son Aditya had watched his debut performance in
Deewana and suggested his name.
Darr ended up capulating Khan to stardom and he went to star in all of Yash's future directorial ventures.
Rishi Kapoor,
Mithun Chakraborty, and
Jackie Shroff were all offered the role of Sunil, however all three of them refused.
Nitish Bharadwaj was also approached for the role of Sunil, due to his popularity as
Lord Krishna in
B. R. Chopra's
Mahabharat, but declined as he felt the role was not challenging enough.
Sunny Deol had been given the choice of playing Sunil or the antagonist Rahul. Deol chose to play Sunil, believing that a negative role would harm his career. == Soundtrack ==