Akshay Kumar reigns supreme at the box office, decimates opposition

Akshay Kumar’s Rustom is not just performing very well at the domestic box office, but the film has completely decimated and annihilated the other release last week – which was one of the year’s most anticipated films starring Hrithik Roshan in the lead.

Now, there are clashes that are won by a small margin and there others that are won by a big margin. Mohenjo Daro’s director Ashutosh Gowarikar himself was at the receiving end when a film like ‘Gadar: Ek Prem Katha’ went on to be the biggest grosser of all time, more than doubling the business of a classic like ‘Lagaan’.

But the scenario back then was completely different. Gadar was a massy action film with chartbuster music. Lagaan did well at the box office too, but the appreciation that the film received was unprecedented. It went on to be only the third film in the history of Indian Cinema to get a Oscar nomination. While Gadar was the box office winner, Lagaan was the better film.

There was another big clash that took place in 2006, when the combined star power of Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan in ‘Jaan-e-mann’ wasn’t enough to beat Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Don: The Chase Begins’, which collected nearly two times more than the Shirish Kunder directed romantic film.

However, the Mohenjo Daro vs Rustom clash particularly stands out as Mohenjo Daro was the bigger film and also appealed to a wider section of the audience. Yet, Rustom could eventually collect nearly 2.5 – 3 times more than Mohenjo Daro.

Even before the release, it was a forgone conclusion that Mohenjo Daro would lose the clash, but the biggest shocker has been in the way in which it has lost. Even much smaller films like Ki and Ka, Baaghi and Udta Punjab have comfortably gone past the 50 crore mark.

In an industry that survives and benefits from perception, Rustom could be a game-changer for Akshay Kumar. It’ll change the way the trade looks at his upcoming films like ‘Jolly LLB 2’ and ‘Crack’. If those films open like Rustom has, he’ll take more credit than he otherwise would for the massive opening of ‘Robot 2.0’.

2016 has been an extraordinary year for the superstar and 2017 could be better. If he does step it up, the purple patch that he has now hit could well be bigger than what was previously though to be his career-high in the mid 2000s.