Bollywood asianculturevulture vibes: Box of cinematic surprises and fallouts…
October is all about unseasonal rains, ‘Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1’ and Diwali parties…our Bird in Mumbai looks back…
By Rodrigues C
IT’S OCTOBER and it’s still raining in Mumbai.
The weather has taken the whole city by surprise.
Fortunately, it didn’t rain during Diwali and didn’t dampen people’s festive spirits.
Talking of Diwali, Bollywood didn’t host too many parties this year. The Ambanis, Ekta Kapoor and Shilpa Shetty didn’t host their large glamourous parties this year or may be, they hosted private small jamborees where the media wasn’t invited. Anil Kapoor too hosts extravagant Diwali celebrations but not this year.
This year’s biggest Diwali bash was hosted by designer Manish Malhotra at his Mumbai pad. In terms of glamour, there were billionaire and philanthropist Nita Ambani, and film star movers and shakers: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Karan Johar, Bobby Deol, Gauri Khan, Ananya Panday, Kriti Sanon, Rekha, Preity Zinta, Malaika Arora, Sanya Malhotra, Jacqueline Fernandez, Kajol, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Fathima Sana Shaikh, Tara Sutaria, Sara Ali Khan, Vaani Kapoor and Huma Qureshi.
Salman Khan who has been hosting the Bigg Boss reality show since the last two months on weekends is in the eye of a media storm.
Abhinav Kashyap who had directed Salman Khan in ‘Dabangg’ has levelled a slew of allegations against the star. Salman Khan has not responded to all of them but has refuted some of the claims.
Kashyap said that for one scene in ‘Dabangg’ Salman Khan’s character Chulbul Pandey had to touch Om Puri’s feet but he refused to ‘bow’ to Puri, which led him to rewrite the scene multiple times.
The director also alleged that Arbaaz Khan and Mahie Gill’s roles were drastically reduced during editing because of Salman Khan’s influence.
Kashyap also claimed that at one point Salman Khan threw utensils at Arbaaz Khan over the same issue. A few days back, Baseer Ali, who was ousted from the show ‘Bigg Boss‘ also blamed Salman Khan of “bias and unfair treatment”.
Then there is director AR Murugadoss, who recently claimed Salman Khan arrived late on the sets of his movies. He said the actor arrives at 8pm and shoots with kids at 2am. The allegations resulted in Salman Khan refuting some of the charges, though indirectly, while hosting ‘Bigg Boss‘.
‘Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1’ hit theatres on October 2 and as things stand it’s the biggest hit of the year with a box office haul of £72.8 million. It has overtaken Laxman Utekar’s Vicky Kaushal-starrer ‘Chhaava’ whose collection stood at £69.05m.
The Rishab Shetty starrer has also become the 14th Indian movie to enter the elite ₹800 crore (£68.3m) club; ‘Stree 2’ tops the list with £73.2m. It’s now the second highest grossing Kannada film after dethroning its first instalment ‘Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1’, which minted £34.8m back in 2022.
The number one spot belongs to ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ with a box office of £103.8m.
The Rishab Shetty directorial is now the fourth Kannada film to cross the ₹200 crore (£17.09m) mark worldwide. At ₹ 238 crore (£20.3m), ‘KGF: Chapter 1’ was the first Kannada film to achieve this feat. The first day collection of ‘Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1’ stood at £5.2m, the third-highest single-day collection of 2025 behind the £5.5m of Rajinikanth’s ‘Coolie’ and £5.4m of Pawan Kalyan’s ‘They Call Him OG’. The coming few days will surely see ‘Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1’ destroy some more records.
Among other movies, Mari Selvaraj’s Tamil sports drama ‘Bison Kaalamaadan‘ hit theatres on October 17. The Dhruv Vikram starrer has so far collected about £3.4m. Pradeep Ranganathan’s romantic action comedy ‘Dude’, which also released on October 17, has raked in more than ₹100 crore globally and is the 5th highest-grossing Tamil film of 2025.
Ayushmann Khurrana-Rashmika Mandanna-Nawazuddin Siddiqui movie ‘Thamma’ released on October 21. Made on a hefty budget of £12.3m, the film has recouped about £11.5m so far. Another movie, ‘Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat’ also released on October 21. Featuring Harshvardhan Rane and Sonam Bajwa, this Milap Zaveri directorial was made on a paltry £2.1m budget. But the film has made a profit, collecting over £5.3m.
Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor starrer ‘Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari’, which hit theatres on October 2 is still running in theatres. The movie has collected £8.3m and is close to the ₹100 crore (£8.5m) milestone.
November shall see the release of movies such as ‘De De Pyaar De 2’ with Ajay Devgn, Rakul Preet Singh and R Madhavan, ‘120 Bahadur’ with Farhan Akhtar and Raashii Khanna; ‘Mastiii 4‘ with Riteish Deshmukh, Vivek Oberoi and Aftab Shivdasani, Aanand L Rai directorial ‘Tere Ishk Mein’ with Dhanush and Kriti Sanon and music by AR Rahman, and ‘Haq’ staring Emraan Hashmi and Yami Gautam; it’s based on the famous Shah Bano case which is about alimony payments for divorced Muslim women. So, there is a lot in store in the upcoming month. We’ll catch you soon with the November numbers and more, of course till then enjoy…
Happy Halloween!
Top picture: Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor in ‘Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari’
