Bollywood asianculturevulture vibes: One hit; Aki and Devgn flops and Kangana’s troubles with ‘Emergency’

As star names fail the litmus test at the box office, here’s a lowdown on what the chatter is, in the last month before India’s festival season gets underway…

By Rodrigues C

IT’S SUPPOSEDLY monsoons in Mumbai but rather, it’s hot and humid, just like May; the city witnessed scanty showers this year.

For Bollywood, the upcoming last four months of the year are auspicious as most of India’s biggest festivals are celebrated during this phase.

Arguably, Mumbai’s biggest festival Ganesh Chaturthi will be celebrated in September this year.
Even before the festive season could actually start, there seems to be some fireworks already going on in tinseltown.

The Rajkummar Rao-Shraddha Kapoor-Aparshakti Khurana starrer ‘Stree 2’ has stuck gold at the box office.

Yes, the movie was riding on the success of its first instalment ‘Stree 2’ but collecting as much as £41 million in just about 15 days – it hit theatres on August 15 with a £5 million opening – is some achievement of sorts.

On its first weekend, it made a cool £18.5m. The following Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it raked in an impressive £3m, £3.6m and £1.8m.

Budgeted at around £5.4m, this Amar Kaushik directorial is soon likely to cross the ₹500 crore (£45m) mark, which is a milestone when it comes to box office collections in Indian cinema.

Its overall global gross now stands at £54m. ‘Stree 2’ is now India’s sixth highest grossing Hindi film ever. This is about a town called Chanderi, where a headless entity abducts women and Vicky played by Rajkummar Rao, and his friends come to the town’s rescue.

So, Akshay Kumar has delivered yet another disaster at the box office in the form of his August 15 release ‘Khel Khel Mein’.

The movie also featured Fardeen Khan, Taapsee Pannu and Vaani Kapoor. Made on a budget of almost £10m the film had a poor opening, collecting just about £1.7m.

During the second week, the collections fell further and so far the Mudassar Aziz directorial, which is a remake of the 2016 Italian film ‘Perfect Strangers’, has collected just about £2.3m.

Interestingly, despite delivering so many flops in the last few months’ producers haven’t stopped putting their money on Aki.

His upcoming releases include ‘Sky Force’, ‘Singham Again’ — and Diwali releases — ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, ‘Jolly LLB 3’ and ‘The Untold Story’. There is also a movie with filmmaker Milan Luthria.

Another big star, Ajay Devgn also had a release this month, on August 2. ‘Auron Mein Kaha Dum Tha’, which is directed by Neeraj Pandey was budgeted well over £10m. But unfortunately, the film has so far only generated about £1.1m at the box office.

After ‘Maidaan’ this is Devgn’s second failure at the box office this year. But he has a hit to his credit in the form of ‘Shaitaan’.

He has one more movie this year, Rohit Shetty’s ‘Singham Again’. The Diwali release is bound to be hit considering the previous two instalments of the franchise ‘Singham’ and ‘Singham Returns’ were massive hits.

Another movie of Devgn’s, ‘Raid 2’, which was scheduled to release this year has been pushed to 2025.

Yet another movie that failed to impress audiences was the John Abraham’s ‘Vedaa’, which also featured Sharvari Wagh. It’s unclear what the film’s budget is but it also hit theatres on August 15 – Independence Day and a national public holiday.

So far, this Nikhil Advani directorial has collected just over £2m.

Moving away from August releases, Kangana Ranaut’s ‘Emergency’ has been in the works since a long time.

It was first scheduled to hit theatres in October or November 2023. The second release date, June 14, was rescheduled because of India’s national elections. Now, its third release date of September 6 is in doubts, as well, because the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee has sent a legal notice to the producers of the film for ‘misrepresenting the character and history of the Sikh community’.

Additionally, a Public Interest Litigation has been filed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking a ban on the release of the movie.

In addition, Manjinder Singh Sirsa – national Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party which is in government has requested the Central Board of Film Certification of India (CBFC) to delete scenes, that he claims are distortions in the film to Sikh history. This is all a little surprising considering Ranaut won a parliamentary seat, at the last general elections in May, standing for the same BJP.

It needs to be seen if the movie will finally see the light of the day. Ranaut is the film’s lead actor, writer, producer and director.

So, despite all the star power on offer, it was ‘Stree 2’ that saved the day for Bollywood in August.

September will see ‘Metro… In Dino’ (Aditya Roy Kapur, Sara Ali Khan, Pankaj Tripathi, Konkona Sen Sharma) and ‘The Buckingham Murders’ (Kareena Kapoor Khan, Keith Allen, Ranveer Brar) among others battle it out at the box office.

Our colleagues in London (ACV HQ) have already seen it as it hit London Film Festival (LFF) last year – though many were disappointed that Kareena Kapoor Khan did not make it in person to its world premiere. It also screened at Mami – Mumbai Academy of Moving Image Festival, earlier this year.

Read our review here of ‘The Buckingham Murders’ with our wrap of LFF 2023 – http://asianculturevulture.com/portfolios/london-film-festival-2023-its-a-wrap-highlights-whats-to-come-gallery-the-buckingham-murders-review-lff-wrap-chat-video/

Right, Happy Ganesh Chaturthi if you celebrate it and welcome to Festival Season in India…