A wise man once said, ‘Content is the king’. In 2018, especially in the context of Hindustani cinema, or Bollywood, he wouldn’t have been truer. While films like ‘Raazi’, ‘Parmanu’, ‘AndhaDhun’, ‘Gold’, ‘Stree’, ‘Badhaai Ho’ etc. reaping millions without deviating from their content base or earnest acting by the lead crew, big budget movies like ‘Fanney Khan’, ‘Race 3’, ‘Namaste England’ etc. have been bluntly rejected by the masses.
In fact, ‘Namaste England’ is not only one of the worst box office disasters, but also the lowest rated movie on the famous site IMDb. Now, in a complete shock to one and all, including the die hard fans of Aamir Khan, the much awaited Diwali release i.e. ‘Thugs of Hindostan’, starring Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and Fatima Sana Sheikh in principal roles, has bitten the dust on the box office.
Despite a surprise opening of Rs. 50 crore on the opening day, the film, directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya, is headed towards a massive failure, as the box office collections amount to a mere Rs. 118.7 crores after an extended opening weekend. Even when the collections from other versions in Tamil and Telugu, and the international revenue is combined, the film stands at only Rs. 180 crores approximately in terms of overall collections, way below than the huge budget of the movie, slated to be around Rs. 300 crores.
The writing is officially on the wall. Even if Thugs of Hindostan manages to recover its costs, it will be at best a mere average grosser, which is, in itself a polite way of addressing the failure the Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan starrer has been.
Criticized for its below average plot and clichéd treatment to an interesting premise, the brickbats ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ received worked as a blessing in disguise for the only other movie in line, the critically and commercially acclaimed ‘Badhaai Ho’, which is again minting money owing to a quick return of the masses to its shows.
#MovieReview: #ThugsOfHindostan is a KING-SIZED DISAPPOINTMENT… Read my detailed review on Bollywood Hungama: https://t.co/24HOwE3AS0 pic.twitter.com/Psyjmi6uRb
— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) November 8, 2018
In a country, where films like ‘Judwaa 2’, ‘Sanju’, ‘PK’, ‘Happy New Year’, ‘ etc. have minted millions despite their bizarre plots and mediocre acting by the lead actors, this verdict is nothing less than a breeze of fresh air for Bollywood. It takes guts to reject a movie starring Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, on the basis of content, something which the Indian audience is not very well known for. This sentiment was well reflected by famous critic cum trade analyst Taran Adarsh, who said the following in his tweets:-
The DOWNFALL continues… #ThugsOfHindostan gets weaker with each passing day… With biz declining further on Day 3 [Sat], the writing is clear on the wall… Will find it tough to sustain from Day 5 [Mon] onwards… #TOH
— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) November 11, 2018
The film was officially declared a flop by other known trade analysts like Sumit Kadel and Joginder Tuteja, who described the reasons as follows :
Reasons why #ThugsOfHindostan is Biggest DISASTER of All Time –
1- Starring Megastar Aamir & Amitabh bacchan
2- Budget- 260 cr
3- Aamir in prime phase of his career.
4- Diwali Solo release with 3 week free run.Yet Thugs lifetime collection will wrap below ₹ 160 cr in India.
— Sumit Kadel (@SumitkadeI) November 10, 2018
In fact, Sumit Kadel expressed irony at the fate of this movie as he compared the same to another Diwali release of Aamir Khan, the 1996 movie ‘Raja Hindustani’, which despite its weird plot, was a massive box office success. Following is the Twitter thread:-
Ek woh bhi diwali thee Ek yeh bhi diwali hain !!
Today is the 22nd Anniversary of Dharmesh Darshan's Raja Hindustani release considered the 3rd biggest boxoffice hit of Bollywood even today with HAHK and DDLJ .#22YearsofRajaHindustani— Sumit Kadel (@SumitkadeI) November 11, 2018
This is not all. Sumit Kadel had even taken a sly dig at the producers, alleging that they presented bloated figures of their box collection, as evident in the following news links :
Going by the tweets, Sumit isn’t far from the truth either. Following the massive opening, the collections for Thugs of Hindostan have dipped by leaps and bounds. Despite the dip, if the film has minted approximately Rs. 192 crores, as per the makers’s statistics, it only implies one thing : either the makers were lying then, or they are lying now.
A distributor told me today- #ThugsofHindostan ne Distributors ki laashein nahi bichaayi, balki unhe zindaa gaad diya hai. Such a event film crashed on first weekend itself is a surreal never seen before phenomenon.
— Sumit Kadel (@SumitkadeI) November 10, 2018
This is not the first such case. Only a few months ago, in early August, came Anubhav Sinha’s ‘Mulk’. Cashing in on the anti-hindu sentiments carefully planted and propagated in Kathua case, he attempted to do the ‘poor man’s My Name Is Khan’, criticizing the already oppressed Sanatan community for their alleged ‘Islamophobia’.
The crew were no less vicious, with actors Taapsee Pannu and Rishi Kapoor openly backing the Hinduphobic campaign. However, all their efforts went down the drain, as the public completely ignored, and despite surviving the downgrading on IMDb, Mulk barely managed to recover its costs. If this continues, we might see the ‘acche din’ for Indian cinema, where we won’t be served senseless crap, all in the name of entertainment.
