"I wondered how they would play around with such an iconic film," added Naga Chaitanya, a Telugu-language star from the southern film industry "Tollywood" who plays Bala, an adaptation of Gump's shrimp-fishing Vietnam comrade Bubba.
"But the way they have conceived the film for Indian cinema is unique."
Recent silver-screen hits have not come from Hindi-language Bollywood but are in other Indian languages, such as action flicks "Pushpa", "KGF: Chapter 2" and "RRR".
"RRR", released in March, raked in $87 million domestically, while "KGF: Chapter 2", which debuted a few weeks later, took in $106 million, media analyst Karan Taurani of Mumbai-based Elara Capital told AFP.
Action film "Shamshera", released on July 22 and starring Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor, has so far only made $5.6 million, dashing hopes it would lure audiences back to Hindi cinema.
A rare Bollywood hit this year has been comedy horror "Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2" released on May 20 and featuring rising star Kartik Aryan, which has brought in $24 million so far.
Now, all eyes are on "Laal Singh Chaddha" and family dramedy "Raksha Bandhan" with Bollywood megastar Akshay Kumar -- which also releases on Thursday.
Taurani estimates that "Laal Singh Chaddha" will make $19 million, falling short of Khan's per-film average of $35 million.
Khan, who co-produced "Laal Singh Chaddha", believes Bollywood hasn't lost its mojo, blaming the early release of movies on streaming services for lower box-office takings.
"I feel that perhaps we -- I'm including myself in this -- as Hindi filmmakers, need to... also pick topics which are relevant to a larger audience, as opposed to picking topics which are relevant to a smaller audience," he said.
