I’m really excited about these super early rumors for Ajay and Anil’s next, even though they contain basically no substantial content, so I am reporting them anyway!
First, Ajay! The first poster is on twitter for his next film, Sons of Sardaar: The Battle of Saragarhi.
Exciting! We haven’t had a good war movie in ages! And this will be a period piece! The battle took place back in 1897, 21 Sikhs against 10,000 Afghanis. So, sad ending I am pretty sure. But, triumphal! At least in “triumph of the human spirit” terms.
What’s really interesting is that it is a war period piece set in colonial times with heroes who were in the British Indian Army. The Indian soldiers in the British Army have so many great stories of heroism and bravery, but it is hard to make a film about them without feeling like you are buying into colonialism. If Ajay has finally cracked the code and figured out a way to handle it, I would be thrilled! We can get so many other awesome movies out of this.
Oh, and Anil Kapoor also announced a movie about Sikhs. Or at least, he will be playing a Sikh, in his next movie, Mubaraka. Which, he says, is the first time he is playing a Sardaar. Which just doesn’t seem possible to me, but I guess he would know?
(Ha! I knew I could picture him in a turban! Sure, it’s just for this one song, but it has happened before0
More importantly, he will be co-starring with his nephew Arjun for the first time! Exciting! I am really curious to see them interact together onscreen.
And then there is the box office news. Less exciting. Sultan is dropping off, it looks like it might just squeak by at 300 crore as of this week. The sad thing is, 300+ crore box office has now become boring, expected for a Khan film. Sultan had a fabulous run, but it’s not noteworthy, because it didn’t break into the crazy high 600 crore level.
And Dishoom opened okay, at about 25% occupancy. Which again shows the way assumptions play into things! It a Khan film opens below 50%, it is already called a flop. Dishoom at 25% for the morning shows is considered opening “well”.
dontcallitbollywood 
So “Sons of Sardaar” is not a sequel to “Son of Sardar”? Thank goodness.
300 cr is “expected” and routine? Since the second highest grossing film so far in 2016 topped out at 123 crore, and the other “Khan” film this year ended at 85 crore, 300 doesn’t seem so routine to me, especially when it had basically a 9 day first week to get all its money, as it gave up its open run to another film in the second week, and has another new release this week to contend with.
LikeLike
That’s why it’s so sad, 300 crore is actually a super huge box office by any normal accounts. But it is so routine for a big Khan release, I’m not even seeing that much press or excitement about it. The opening weekend records it broke, sure, there was a lot of buzz around that. But now that it is in week 4 and coming up on breaking 300 crore in the Indian box office, there’s just a couple small articles here and there. At this point, for a Khan film to make big box office news, it either has to be a “flop” like Fan, or just an insane record breaking long running hit like Bajrangi Bhaijaan or PK.
Yash Raj supposedly has a two tier global roll out planned for Sultan, with prints being shifted to elsewhere in Asia once the runs in North America and Europe stop. If they keep opening it in new territories for the next few months, I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually comes up and breaks Bajrangi’s global record, or even PK’s. But by then all the box office journalists will have moved on to the next big story and will be tracking Mohenjo Daro or Rustom, and giving them accolades for being “big hits” if they break 200 crore.
LikeLike
Neither MJ nor Rustom will break 200cr, rest assured. 🙂 They’ll do well if they break 100.
But you know what I’ve been thinking lately? It’s that any big movie is hyped so much while it’s in production that the actual release is almost an anti-climax. A film hardly has time to breathe and find its audience — and I’m talking big films, with big stars — before its hit/flop status, lifetime total, etc. is all decided, usually by mid-morning of the first day! All these guys use a straight linear extrapolation from the morning show audience to make their predictions, and of course they won’t come true since the BO doesn’t behave in a linear fashion. Then they start writing doom & gloom articles on how the film failed to live up to expectations! But whose expectations, exactly? Only their hyper-fevered imaginations. It’s very sad.
LikeLike
Pingback: divyanshspacetech