The much-awaited docuseries of the year Angry Young Men was released on Amazon Prime Video on August 20, 2024, and it finally lifted the curtains on Salim-Javed Slipt reason. Angry Young Men chronicles the rise of two of the biggest movie writers in Bollywood- Salim Khan, and Javed Akhtar and ultimately their parting ways despite enjoying huge success as a duo film & dialogue writer. Directed by Namrata Rao, Angry Young Men features Salim Khan, Javed Akhtar, Salman Khan, Farhan Akhtar, Arbaaz Khan, Zoya Akhtar, Jaya Bachchan, and more in the docuseries. While Salim and Javed talk about their Bollywood journey in the Prime Video series, the other starcast also opened up about their auras in the Bollywood film fraternity. Being a docuseries, it is obvious Angry Young Men is a true story. Now, the question is why did Salim & Javed slip or part ways from each other in terms of work? Below is what lyricist Javed Akhtar revealed in Angry Young Men docuseries-
"When you start working together, you’re new in the business, you don’t know many people. You keep each other company. Perhaps, out of 24 hours, we were together for 18 hours. Then I made new friends, and he made new friends, slowly our circles started separating. Our evening meetings stopped, that was also a reason but that was not the major reason. The major reason, according to me, was that the spring of our career was drying up. Fatigue was showing in our work too. No doubt about that," said Javed Akhtar.
Salim Khan also admitted that they parted ways, however, unanimously decided never to talk about the split reason in the public. "Yes, we did part ways but we did it in a very civilized way. Normally what happens when people part ways, they throw mud at each other and talk ill. We sometimes argued, we’re not perfect but no one is. I’d give my side of the story, he’d give his. So we just never talked about parting ways. Even when people asked us why or how it happened, we said we don’t know, we don’t like to talk about it. We only speak about the good times we had," said Salim Khan in Amazon Prime Video's docuseries.
For the unversed, Salim-Javed worked on 24 movies together out of which 22 were blockbusters. Their biggest hits include Sholay, Don, and Zanjeer. They parted ways in the early 1980s. The series also revealed that Salim-Javed used to be paid more than the lead actors of the movie including Amitabh Bachchan. Karan Johar in the series outlined that this feat achieved by Salim-Javed was quite rare and in today's era is next to impossible.