Box office intrigue can be more interesting than what is served up on the screen sometimes…
By Rodrigues C
WE TALK about the weather – every time we talk about Bollywood superstar Salman Khan – we also cast our eyes of the other King Khan – Shah Rukh Khan and then there is Akshay Kumar.
All three have huge followings but our column rarely touches on anther icon who also swam in this same cinematic superstardom firmament in India.
But we rarely hear much if anything about the other big Khan of Bollywood – Aamir Khan, who, actually, is a recluse.
In filmdom, all stars make it a point to be visible, to be in the public eye. Their publicists go out of the way to make sure their photos are in the newspapers or social media. But not Aamir Khan.
Last year, Aamir Khan had appeared on Salman Khan’s show ‘Bigg Boss’ (India’s version of Big Brother and one of the world’s most avidly followed TV shows) and the latter had mentioned how the ‘Ghajini’ star just doesn’t like going out and prefers to be confined to his home.
Salman Khan even revealed that he had told Aamir Khan several times to go out but the other Khan just didn’t.
As things stand, Aamir Khan is the favour of the season, thanks to his newest offering ‘Sitaare Zameen Par’ (‘SZP’), his first film after the 2022 debacle ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’.
He had a cameo in ‘Salaam Venky’ (2022) and produced Kiran Rao’s directorial ‘Laapataa Ladies’ (2023).
So, Aamir Khan hosted a few screenings of ‘SZP’ and one of them was attended by some big names, including Salman Khan and SRK. Rekha, Asha Bhosle, Vicky Kaushal, Juhi Chawla, Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Jeetendra, and Tiger Shroff also attended.
‘SZP’ is a sequel to ‘Taare Zameen Par’ (2007) and an official remake of the Spanish film ‘Champions’ (2018).
The RS Prasanna directorial opened to a decent £1.05 million on Friday, June 20.
The drama, which also features, Genelia D’Souza and 10 disabled children, picked up on its numbers on Saturday, June 21 collecting almost £2m.
On Sunday, June 22, there was more growth with figures swelling to £2.6m.
Now, by the end of the first week the film had raked in about £8.8m in India. Along with the international collection, its box office figures now stand at £15.5m. (following the latest weekend box office figures).
The movie is believed to be budgeted around £11.7m. Aamir Khan’s highest grossing movie is ‘Dangal’ (£38m), followed by ‘PK’ (£33.3) and ‘Dhoom 3’ (£27.5m); ‘Taare Zameer Par’ collected £6.1m.
Earlier (June 6) saw the release of the Tarun Mansukhani directorial ‘Housefull 5’ , featuring one of the biggest star casts in recent memory; Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan, Nana Patekar, Jackie Shroff, Riteish Deshmukh, Shreyas Talpade, Jacqueline Fernandez, Chitrangada Singh, Dino Morea, Nargis Fakhri and Fardeen Khan.
On day one (June 6), the comedy collected a whopping £2.3m. On the Saturday and Sunday, the collections rose to £3.04m and £3.19m. By the end of the first week, the film had made a handsome £12.5m.
Its current total stands at £28m – making a profit on its estimated £22.1m investment.
‘Kuberaa’ staring Dhanush, Rashmika Mandanna and Nagarjuna hit theatres on Friday, June 20.
Day one of the thriller, which is budgeted at around £11.7m, fetched it £1.4m. The next two days saw the thriller make £1.6m and £1.7m. The first week’s collection of the movie stood at £6.7m. The high budget of the film is due to the high salaries of Dhanush and Nagarjuna, who have charged £2.9m and £1.3m – and to say nothing about Mandanna’s as well – she was recently described as one of the highest paid actors in India. Yes, forget male or female… The film is now staring at a massive loss.
Another movie, which had a poor box office life was Kamal Haasan’s Mani Ratnam directorial ‘Thug Life’.
After debuting on June 5 with a strong £3.5m collection worldwide due to its hype, the thriller has made just about £9m after a three-week run. Its budgeted around £19.6m. The makers of the film had initially announced that it would release on streaming (known as OTT for short in India) after eight weeks.
But owning to the poor performance of the movie, the digital release date is down to four weeks. This decision resulted in the movie’s OTT platform Netflix reducing its fee for the film from the original £12.7m to £10.8m.
On the other hand, distributors and multiplex chains in north India have imposed a fine of £246,000 on the film due to the reduced theatrical window. Just this Friday (June 27) saw the release of Kajol’s horror thriller ‘Maa’. (We will be reviewing shortly… from a London media screening).
Also released on the same day was £20m mythological ‘Kannnappa’ with Vishnu Manchu, Mohanlal, Prabhas and Aki again featuring.
Takings from ‘Maa’ currently stand at £1.6m, while ‘Kannappa’ has about £2.3m from box office receipts.
July will see Rajkummar Rao (‘Maalik’), Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi Kapoor (‘Param Sundari‘) and Ajay Devgn and Sanjay Dutt (‘Son of Sardaar 2’) battle it out on the big screen.
