Bollywood asianculturevulture vibes – Ranveer Singh row resolution efforts, several star films break through…
It’s that time of the month when we look back – Superstar Ranveer Singh is still making headlines even without featuring in a movie; ‘Karuppu’, ‘Drishyam 3’ and ‘Raja Shivaji’ are the films all doing brisk business this month…
By Rodrigues C
SUMMER is taking its toll on Mumbai. Most people try staying within the confines of their homes, bar essential reasons, such as going to work or shopping. Schools are closed now for the summer vacations here.
The flavour of the month has surely been Ranveer Singh who is making waves in India due to the massive success or the Dhurandhar films, ‘Dhurandhar’ and ‘Dhurandhar – The Revenge’ have broken recent box office records and the critical acclaim has almost been unanimous, except for those who see the second instalment as overtly political and dismiss it as “propaganda”.
Now Singh has now been making news for a different reason.
It all started when one of the standout stars of this decade decided to exit from the upcoming ‘Don 3’ after being attached to the project for a long period. Producers Farhan Akhtar (an actor and increasingly powerful industry figure) and fellow producer Ritesh Sidhwani then claimed the withdrawal caused major financial losses, estimated at around £3 million. They said the pull out meant contracts all the way down the line would be cancelled…
The matter was taken to the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE), which then issued a non-cooperation directive against Singh after stating that he did not respond to multiple notices. It is believed the dispute may have involved production delays, script-related concerns, disagreements over the project’s direction, with Singh being unhappy with delays, or that alternative casting options were being explored, while he was still attached to the film.
Many in the film industry have started taking sides. Actor Padmini Kolhapure openly stood by Singh, saying CINTAA (Cine and TV Artistes’ Association) was proud to have him as a member despite the controversy.
Influential filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma criticised FWICE’s action, and called the body a “kangaroo court”, questioning whether industry bodies should have such power over actors. He argued that stars are central to the industry’s functioning.
Well-known author and columnist Shobhaa De too criticised the FWICE directive and added her voice against the action taken against Singh. It is also believed that Bollywood bigwigs actor Aamir Khan, and producers Karan Johar and Sajid Nadiadwala, are trying to resolve the issue.
Now, let’s move to box office numbers with this month’s May movie releases.
And winning the race is the Tamil film ‘Karuppu’, featuring South stars Suriya and Trisha Krishnan. Made on a budget of about £10m, the film started on a promising £1.2m of Friday, May 15. The following two days of the weekend its collections rose to £1.9m and £2.2m, due to good word of mouth publicity. By the end of the first week, the film had collected an impressive £10m. The overall worldwide collections of the RJ Balaji directorial now stand at £23.6m.
Kerala icon Mohanlal’s ‘Drishyam 3’ released on May 21, the 66th birthday of the Malayalam star.
The first day of the movie saw it mint £1.2m. Day two, three and four saw the movie collect £870,000, £1.07m and £1.09m, respectively. In India alone, the film has crossed the magic figure of र100 crore (£7.8m). The international markets have given the thriller another £8.7m, overtaking other Malayalam language hits of the year such as ‘Aadu 3’ (£9.4m), ‘Patriot’ (£6.2m), ‘Athiradi’ (£4.9m) and ‘Bharathanatyam 2 Mohiniyattam’ (£3.1m).
‘Drishyam 3’ is now the second highest grossing Malayalam film of the year behind ‘Vaazha II: Biopic of a Billion Bros’ which had collected £18.5m.
The third spot for May was taken by the Marathi film ‘Raja Shivaji’, which has an impressive cast of Riteish Deshmukh, Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan, Vidya Balan, Mahesh Manjrekar and Genelia Deshmukh. The historical, which is directed by Deshmukh himself, made more than £1m on day one. Over the next two days, the film collected over £2.11m. The movie’s collection started dropping thereafter and now stands at £9.8m since its May 1 release.
Malayalam movie ‘Athiradi’ with Kerala stars Tovino Thomas and Basil Joseph (£4.7m), and Hindi movies – ‘Aakhri Sawal’ with Sanjay Dutt and Amit Sadh (£230,000), ‘Pati Patni Aur Woh Do’ with Ayushmann Khurrana, Sara Ali Khan and Rakul Preet Singh (£4.3m), ‘Chand Mera Dil’ with Ananya Panday and ‘Lakshya‘ (£2.1m) and ‘Krishnavataram Part 1: The Heart (Hridayam)‘ with Siddharth Gupta and Sanskruti Jayana (£2.6m) were also in the fray but couldn’t manage to attract mass numbers to put them in clear hit country.
June, when monsoons hit India annually, will be high on star power.
Battling it out at big screen will be ‘Bandar’ staring Bobby Deol and Sanya Malhotra, David Dhawan’s ‘Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai’ staring his son Varun Dhawan, Pooja Hegde and Mrunal Thakur, ‘Governor: The Silent Saviour’, featuring Manoj Bajpayee and Adah Sharma, ‘Bharat Bhhagya Vidhaata’ with Kangana Ranaut, ‘Cocktail 2’ with Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon and Rashmika Mandanna, and the ‘Welcome’ franchise’s latest offering ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ powered by Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade, Aftab Shivdasani, Lara Dutta, Jacqueline Fernandez and Disha Patani. There’s also director Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Main Vaapas Aaunga’ – featuring music and Bollywood Punjabi superstar Diljit Dosanjh scored with the AR Rahman’s music – it releases June 12 worldwide.
So, along with the cloudy rain soaked skies, June will also bring in bright shining stars in the cinemas…just make sure to shield yourself from the rain in India – or the heat in Europe, US and the UK. Till June…
Lead picture: ‘Pati Patni Aur Woh Do’
