Exclusive: Why have Salman, Shah Rukh and Aamir kept mum about Baahubali success?
Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan have stayed away from making any comment on Baahubali.
Remember back in school when your friend scored more than you in a math exam and you couldn’t stand it? You went back to the teacher with silly arguments to try and score some extra grace marks, even though the incorrect answer was staring right at you. Simply put, your insecurity was riled up and you wanted to do what it takes. Cut to the Hindi film industry. Sample this: It was Aamir Khan who began the Rs 100 crore club with Ghajini in 2008. The film grossed Rs 116 crore at the turnstiles. Many other films followed suit.
In 2009, Aamir Khan then went on to break the Rs 200 crore barrier with his film 3 Idiots directed by Rajkumar Hirani. The film made Rs 202 crore at the marquee. More films came to cross the Rs 200-crore barrier after that. Five years later, in 2014, it was Aamir Khan again who got to be the first entrant to the Rs 300 crore club when his film PK directed by Hirani again breasted the tape and went on to collect Rs 340 crore.
However, when it came to first breaking the Rs 400 crore club in Bollywood and the Rs 1,000 crore across the world, the pint-sized Khan was upstaged by the gargantuan effort of S.S. Rajamouli’s film Bahubali 2: The Conclusion. Aamir’s last release Dangal fell Rs 13 crore short of the Rs 400 crore mark, ending up at Rs 387 crore.
While Aamir has been pushing news about the success of his film Dangal around the world — now claiming to have collected Rs 1,000 crore — Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan have stayed away from making any comment on Baahubali.
Agreed that Dangal is a fabulous film and that it has indeed brought about a wave across the country and outside, news about the film’s superb run at the Chinese box office (in over whopping 9,000 screens) and then the film crossing Rs 1,000 crore across the world has now emerged. While the Aamir Khan film becomes the first Bollywood film to touch Rs 1,000 crore, it is only the second Indian film to do so. It seems like the makers of Dangal are in a race with the magnum opus, as at the time of going to press, the figures are real close, with Baahubali at Rs 1,330 crore and Dangal at 1,146 crore!
Add to the fact that Salman and SRK — who are usually very active on their social mediums, have not even remotely spoken about the film. SRK was present at an event for a multiplex chain recently, but avoided questions as he could have been asked about Baahubali. Salman Khan, who last attended Asha Parekh’s book launch, has stayed away from media and is now shooting in the UAE and hence is unavailable. His Twitter has no word about Baahubali when almost the entire country is talking about it.
Are we seeing traces of insecurity in Bollywood, because a film with people they had hardly even heard of, made the world notice Indian cinema, and not the one with its Badshahs?