Prabhas trying to turn things around with Salaar after the debacle of Adipurush and Shah Rukh Khan looking forward to score a hat-trick with Dunki, after Pathaan and Jawan

Sheetal

After Akshay Kumar’s OMG 2 and Sunny Deol’s Gadar 2 clashed during Independence Day weekend, now it’s the Badshah of Bollywood versus Baahubali of the South! In other words, Shah Rukh Khan’s Dunki and Prabhas’ Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire, both mega-budget films, are releasing in the same week. While we find out which movie is likely to draw more audience, it’s no doubt a win-win situation for the film industry!

Prabhas trying to turn things around with Salaar after the debacle of Adipurush and Shah Rukh Khan looking forward to score a hat-trick with Dunki, after Pathaan and Jawan. The excitement can’t get more palpable

Game on

Prabhas must be looking forward to turn things around with Salaar after his last film, Adiurush, tanked at the box-office. On the other hand, 2023 has been SRK’s year with two of his films, Jawan (Rs 1148.32 crore in gross worldwide collection) and Pathaan (Rs 1050.3 crore), already at number one and two positions in the list of highest grossing films of 2023.

Big clash

In November, there was a clash between Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal (Rs 842.48 crore) and Meghna Gulzar’s Sam Bahadur (Rs 103.97 crore). The negative feedback, memes and reels favoured Animal, making it the third highest grossing movie of the year.

SRK has collaborated with Raj Kumar Hirani — who has a record of directing only hit films till date, including Sanju, PK, 3 Idiots, Munna Bhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munna Bhai — for the first time. Salaar’s director Prashanth Neel is also known for quality work. He has directed three Kannada films till date, Ugramm, KGF: Chapter 1 and KGF: Chapter 2; all of them minted money at the box-office. For the record, KGF: Chapter 2, released in 2022, is still ahead of Jawan and Pathaan in box-office numbers with worldwide collection of Rs 1200-1250 crore.

With no big films preceding the release of Dunki and Salaar until Republic Day 2024 release Fighter, starring Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone, it would be interesting to see which film sustains longer in theatres. If SRK fans can’t be ignored, the craze for Prabhas is no less. Moreover, with Salaar being a two-part film, like Baahubali and KGF, its chances look bright. Not to forget, a Telugu and Kannada film this time, Salaar is available in three other languages — Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi — expanding the target audience. And for good luck charm, Oscar-winning director SS Rajamouli bought the first ticket of Salaar!

Preparation in advance

Makers of Dunki, who refrained from sharing the release date in the teaser or promotional events, is releasing today, a day prior, while Salaar will hit the screens on December 22. It would give Dunki a headstart over Salaar in capitalising on the long Christmas weekend, especially overseas. Salaar team has also adopted an aggressive approach by releasing it across 1,979 locations in North America!

According to reports, on Tuesday, Dunki was ahead of Salaar in advance bookings with approximately Rs 1 crore difference in money collected against the number of tickets sold. But on Wednesday, Salaar made around Rs 13 crore in advance bookings whereas Dunki only sold tickets worth Rs 10 crore in India.

Excited and how!

Prithviraj Sukumaran, who plays the parallel lead alongside Prabhas, said, “It’s holiday season and we are all film-lovers, we’re getting to see a Rajkumar Hirani-SRK’s film and a Prashanth Neel-Prabhas film; we all should be celebrating. I am so excited, I am going to watch both films on the first day. What a fantastic sign-off for a grand 2023 it would be if both the films go on to become blockbusters. I am looking forward to it.”

Helmed by KGF 2 director Prashanth Neel, Salaar Part 1- Ceasefire also stars Prabhas, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Shruti Haasan, Tinnu Anand and Jagapathi Babu. Whereas, Hirani’s Dunki stars Taapsee Pannu, Boman Irani, Vikram Kochhar and Anil Grover, alongside SRK. It also offers a cameo appearance by Vicky Kaushal.  

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#Akshay Kumar #Bollywood #Shah Rukh Khan #Sunny Deol