Bollywoodhungama has figures up for the full weekend.  And it looks like Airlift is officially Akshay’s best opening.  However, it is also a reminder of what it means to be an Akshay Kumar versus a Khan.

Read on for more details.

Including Sunday, with a take of 17.35 crore, Airlift made 44.3 crore in it’s first weekend.  Beating Akshay’s previous best opening of 36.07 for Baby.  This is very impressive, especially considering the growth over the past 3 days, going from about 12 crore on Friday to 14 crore on Saturday to 17 crore on Sunday.

But, just a reminder, Dilwale made 95 crore in it’s first weekend alone.  And it’s not just Dilwale, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo made 40 crore on its first day alone.  Sure, you can say that they were released on major holidays, they had many more screens, they had more promotion behind them.  It isn’t all just star power.  But the reason they got holiday releases, every screen available, and massive promotion, is because they had the star power driving them.  Theater owners want these movies, investors want to buy into them, newspapers want to report on them, families want to go to them as part of their celebrations.

A star like Akshay can deliver a reliable opening weekend almost every time.  But any one of the 3 Khans can deliver twice that, even in a much weaker film (I enjoyed Prem Ratan and Dilwale enormously, but in terms of overall quality, Airlift is far superior).  Which is why, going back to an earlier post, all the success metrics you can find still won’t beat getting one of the hottest superstars in the country to say yes to your picture.  It’s not just the difference between a base hit and a home run, it’s the difference between a base hit and a no hitter.