| If Bollywood is Simba, Shah Rukh Khan is Mufasa Only one image comes to mind right now: Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees Alam telling Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s IPS Majmudar: “Sheron ka zamaana hota hai”. Six years after Raees, Rahul Dholakia’s crime drama starring Shah Rukh Khan and Mahira Khan, came out, the Badshah of Bollywood has truly emerged as a lion, delivering his second worldwide blockbuster of the year that has now made upwards of ₹650 crore at the global box office. Early this year, after a drought of close to three years for the big-screen Bollywood film, Pathaan — SRK’s comeback vehicle that had a lot riding on it — came along. I won’t lie, when I heard, ‘Apni kursi ki peti baandh lo’, in the teaser, my heart sank (negativity bias, they told me later). But as SRK had said in Happy New Year (2014), “Kismat badi kutti cheez hai, kabhi bhi palat jaati hai”. And it did. By the time Pathaan was done with the box office, it had racked up ₹1,050.30 crore worldwide and ₹543 crore at the domestic box office.  That is not all. Between Pathaan and Jawan, several Bollywood projects, many of them starring the industry’s more senior actors, have done well. Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani — Karan Johar’s return to the big screen after 7 years — made more than ₹350 crore at the global BO. OMG2 racked up ₹220 crore all over the world despite getting an A certificate. Gadar 2 ne toh handpump hi ukhaad diya. With ₹516 crore at the worldwide BO, it has confirmed the power of the old hand. If you still feel Shah Rukh Khan merely employed a smart business strategy by combining audiences and industries with Jawan, take a look at Akshay Kumar and Sunny Deol. So much for Indian audiences’ spending capacity going down, as had been reported at the beginning of this year, and surveys suggesting that the baton of entertainment had been passed to OTT for good. As Jawan hurtles towards multiple other records, let me tell you that it has already become the fastest among Hindi movies to breach the ₹500-crore barrier (and that it managed in just four days). It delivered the biggest first-week haul (₹368 crore at the Indian BO) and the highest opening-day figures in Hindi film history. At the time of me excitedly typing this, the global business for the Atlee directorial is set to stand well north of ₹700 crore on Friday. After the failure of Zero (2018), his last film before a self-imposed sabbatical, could Khan have known just how many zeroes his projects to follow up would amass? Could Dunki, SRK’s first-ever collaboration with Rajkumar Hirani, deliver a hattrick of box-office smashers this year? I could bet all my crores on it. With Shah Rukh Khan, in his brand-new, rugged action-hero avatar shattering bones and Jawan shattering records, the meta-ness of this film is equally mind-blowing. Azad Rathore, the younger one of his two characters, signifies both his own self and the period of transition that the Hindi film industry is witnessing. As the salt-and-peppered Vikram Rathore, the smouldering, bandolier-toting, cigar-smoking dealer of justice, he stands for the actor’s everlasting legacy and resilience that will tide Bollywood over any storm. It’s true then, sheron ka zamaana hi hota hai, and if Bollywood is Simba, SRK is Mufasa. |
