When Siddique decided to direct 'Bodyguard' in Hindi, he understood the language but couldn’t speak. During the shoot, it was his assistants who narrated the dialogues to Salman Khan. And he kept away from the dubbing. But here’s the fun part. The 2011 film 'Bodyguard' garnered 250 crores from the box office. It was the biggest hit of the year. That was Siddique’s skill, he knew the pulse of the audience across languages.
Siddique’s films had an audience that belonged to every generation. And there were also Tamilians and North Indians among that audience. He did receive offers from Bollywood before and after 'Bodyguard'. But when he got offers in 2000, he declined due to the language barrier and also due to lack of good stories. So before remaking 'Bodyguard', he watched a lot of Hindi films. He learned the nuances and was met with success but never did a Hindi film after that.
“I could get an entry in Bollywood due to the strength of Bodyguard’s story. It is difficult to translate Malayalam jokes into Hindi. There are several jokes that work because of the speciality of the language. I tried to find humour that suited the tastes of the Tamil and Hindi audiences. If we get a good Hindi writer we will be able to retain the essence of the original,” said Siddique. That explains why he avoided Bollywood.
Though Siddique has made only one film in Hindi, the films directed by Siddique-Lal and the ones directed by Siddique were remade in Hindi. They turned out to be superhits. It was Priyadarshan who remade most of the Siddique Lal films into Bollywood. Though he was offered to remake 'Bodyguard' in Telugu and Kannada, he declined. He was of the opinion that it wasn’t possible to remake Bodyguard in any other language as he did in Hindi.
He has remade several blockbuster films in Tamil. 'Friends', 'Chronic Bachelor' (Engal Anna), 'Bhaskar The Rascal' (Bhaskar Oru Rascal), etc were the films he remade in Tamil. He also did a straight Tamil film called 'Sadhu Miranda'. 'Maro' was his only Telugu film.
