With Thugs of Hindostan and Laal Singh Chaddha, Aamir Khan’s horror of consecutive flops returns

Aamir Khan has given more hits than flops, a rare streak for any star of his stature and caliber. After all, he’s the man behind the inauguration of the 100, 200 and 300 crore club with blockbusters and all time blockbusters like Ghajini, 3 idiots and PK. The last half-a-decade hasn’t been fruitful for the actor known as the perfectionist of Hindi cinema. He had the juggernaut called Thugs of Hindostan that smashed all opening records on day 1 and minted over Rs. 50 crore. It was all downhill for this preposterous period drama from day 2, with the film ending its lifetime run at Rs. 135 crore against a massive budget of over Rs. 250 crore.

The second setback for the actor was the failure of Laal Singh Chaddha, a film that marked (and also melted) his return to celluloid after four years. This remake of Forrest Gump was expected to end the dry spell of the industry but as the collections began pouring in, the drought continued and how. The reasons and theories were dissected, debated and discussed on social media for weeks. In an exclusive story by Firstpost, a large Sikh family saw the film and told the portal, “No matter how good an actor playing a Sardarji, he always looks as if he is faking it. Only a Sikh knows how to wear the turban properly.”

The other reason is, of course, the newly created boycott Bollywood culture that has taken over social media. It’s a wave, a storm or rather a meteor that threatens to derail and demolish the industry into smithereens. Another story by Firstpost says that before the release of Laal Singh Chaddha, when the ‘boycott’ trend was gathering momentum, Kareena Kapoor Khan, the film’s leading lady, said that she doesn’t take such calls seriously as ‘everyone has a voice today’. That’s not all, in an interview back in 2020, she said she never forced anyone to go and watch her and they were free not to see her films. This one comment came back to haunt her and her film, and how.

As per a recent report in India Today, Advait Chandan’s directorial on Day 17, which is on 27 August bagged just Rs. 0.5. Suffering badly at the box office, reportedly, even on Day 16, the movie hardly earned Rs. 0.6 crore at the box office. This was against the staggering Rs. 180 crore that have gone into the film.

This is the first time Aamir Khan has had two consecutive failures at the box-office. The last time he had to go through this purple patch was in 1999 and 2000, with the dual disasters of 1947 Earth and Mela. There was Indra Kumar’s Mann too, a strictly average affair. He bounced back with classics like Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai in 2001. He also gave nearly 10 back-to-back hits from 2006 to 2017. These were Rang De Basanti, Fanaa, Taare Zameen Par, Ghajini, 3 idiots, Talaash- The Answer Lies Within, Dhoom 3, PK, Dangal, and Secret Superstar. It’s time for him to repeat history. Since the history of failure has already repeated itself.

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