As the industry goes into a serious nostalgia phase, here are movies that made November a month to remember in terms of the box office numbers…
By Rodrigues C
IN MUMBAI, the chills are back in the evenings nights and early mornings bringing a welcome relief from the heat and humidity; yesterday (November 29) was just 16.5C, the coldest day in the city since 2016.
So, for some reason Bollywood bigwigs have been re-releasing past blockbusters this year. And, surprisingly, the trend has caught on. November 22 saw the re-release of the Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) -Salman Khan 1995 reincarnation drama ‘Karan Arjun’ with much fanfare. Even a brand new teaser was launched by Salman Khan himself. Hrithik Roshan whose father Rakesh Rohan directed the film took to Instagram to share the news. Released with 2208 shows in 1114 theatres, the movie has so far collected more than £100,000. Its first release had generated £4.1m at the box office in 1995.
In fact, just a few days earlier on November 15, another of SRK’s film, the 2003 blockbuster ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’ hit theatres.
Also featuring Preity Zinta and Saif Ali Khan, the Nikhil Advani directed and Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions love story has so far minted more than £400,000 at the box office adding to its original tally of £3.5 million, which was the second highest in 2003 behind the £4.7m of ‘Koi Mil Gaya’. Rewind a little more to November 7, and we saw the re-release of a recent classic, Yash Chopra’s ‘Veer Zaara’. The SRK-Zinta-Amitabh Bachchan-Hema Malini-Rani Mukerji-Divya Dutta-Manoj Bajpayee love story re-released in 600 cinemas across the world on its 20th anniversary, premiering for the first time in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, which all have large South Asian populations.
The deleted song ‘Yeh hum aa gaye hai kahaan’ was also part of the re-released version for the first time. The film was re-released in February and September this year as well. It originally collected £9.1m but its various re-releases over the years have fetched the movie an additional £240,000.
Interestingly, 2024 has been dubbed the year of re-releases, what with the re-releases of movies such as Satyajit Ray’s Bengali classic ‘Mahanagar’ (1963), ‘Gunaa’ (1991), Malayalam thriller ‘Manichitrathazhu’ (1993; remade in Hindi as ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’), ‘Indian’ (1996), ‘Pardes’ (1997), ‘Tum Bin’ (2001), ‘Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein’ (2001), ‘Jab We Met’ (2007), ‘Chak De! India’ (2007), ‘Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani’ (2009), ‘Rockstar’ (2011) and ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ (2011). ‘Tumbbad’ (2018) and ‘Laila Majnu’ (2018) had collected £1.2m and £250,000 during their original releases but their re-releases this year surpassed these collections. While the former collected £2.8m, for the latter the box office bonanza was £1m.
Arguably, two of the biggest releases of the year ‘Singham Again’ and ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3’ hit theatres on November 1. ‘Singham Again’, which boasts of an impressive cast of Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff and Jackie Shroff took off to a £6m opening, which shot up to £11.6m over the same weekend. Now, in its fifth week, the cop franchise has so far minted ₹400 crore (£37.3m) at the global box office, which is a major milestone in terms Bollywood box office numbers. The Rohit Shetty directorial is now Devgn’s highest grossing film surpassing ‘Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior’, which made £34m. ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3’, which featured names as Kartik Aaryan, Tripti Dimri, Vidya Balan and Madhuri Dixit opened to a £5.1m collection eventually raking in £14.7m in its first week. As things stand, the Anees Bazmee directorial has crossed the ₹400 crore (£37.3m) milestone at the worldwide box office. Like Devgn, it’s now the highest grossing film of Aaryan’s career, only difference being the former has been in the industry since ‘Phool Aur Kaante’ (1991), Aaryan’s film journey started with ‘Pyaar Ka Punchnama’ (2011).
The third big movie of the month ‘Kanguva’, featuring Bobby Deol and Suriya opened to £2.2m on November 14. Made on a budget of £28m, the movie has so far collected just about £6.5m.
Vikrant Massey starrer ‘The Sabarmati Report’ was released on November 15. Budgeted around £4.6m, the movie has so far recovered just about £2m of its investment. Both the movies bombed at the box office.
The last month of the year will see ‘Pushpa 2: The Rule’ with Allu Arjun and Atlee’s ‘Baby John’ with Varun Dhawan among others. Catch you all during the Christmas festivities.
