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In Focus: After Two Flops One After The Other, Can Akshay Kumar Bounce Back?
After Two Flops One After The Other, Can AKshay Kumar Bounce Back?
Previously called a box office dazzler, Akshay Kumar has however in the last two films seen little or no static as both his films have been resounding duds. Sumita Chakraborty analyses whether Akshay will bounce back and be ‘lucky Akki’ again?
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At one point, Akshay Kumar was considered as one of the luckiest actors in Bollywood as whatever he touched became Box office darlings. In fact, in the last five years, Akshay had even changed his path and dabbled in meaningful cinema like Padman which went on to be a huge success. But Laxmii – a film that Akshay was banking a lot on to prove his acting chops bombed. And, how! Of course, it was pandemic time and the lockdown was at its zenith, so when Laxmii released on Amazon Prime, an OTT platform, the reaction from the public was shockingly lacklustre. But still, Akshay had always been lucky so people just assumed it was a one off thing, “an experimental” film that the public just didn’t take to, But Akshay being Akshay would definitely find his golden touch and be back as the undisputed king of the Box office. But his much tom-tommed film Bell Bottom came and this time, it was the first film to open up at the theatres after the lockdown. But again, the non -reaction of the public was almost shocking. Film pundits however analysed that since theatres at that point had just open up to 50 percent of its capacity, perhaps that was the reason, the film came and went almost un-noticed. They claimed releasing Bell Bottom on the OTT platform would be a different story. A few weeks later, Bell Bottom was released on Amazon Prime, but shockingly then again, the film proved to be a dud. The criticism and the trolls became unbearably personal to the extent that they were foretelling t Akshay Kumar’s career end. Suddenly Akshay who was considered the winning horse on the box office, looked to a rather uncertain future. Of course, he still has a whole host of good films from Singham, Prithviraj, Ram Setu, Bachchan Pandey to Raksha Bandhan under his belt. So perhaps it isn’t really necessary to ring in the alarm
bells as yet. But an insider claimed, “Some of Akshay’s producers are now walking on egg shells. After all a winning horse is viable only till it wins and after that, one has to identify solutions. “ True, after all Bollywood is a place of business and nothing works better than success. The same insider elaborated, “After the pandemic, things have changed. The OTT audience has been exposed to world cinema so now won’t be appeased with the same popcorn flicks Bollywood would regularly dish out. In fact, everyone from Shah Rukh Khan to Salman Khan, to even Ashay Kumar have gone back to the boardroom to reinvent their scripts. It’s no use serving old wine in new bottles, the audience now want good content and good cinema.” So will Akshay bounce back? Akshay Kumar has been called the luckiest star at the box office but behind the luck factor, there has been a lot of thought, hard work and persipiration. Akshay knows all the tricks of the trade and can feel the pulse of the box office. The minute he realises something is not working, he changes track and moves with the times. His tryst with meaningful films did pay rich dividend more so as he himself had invested on the subject. So it’s definitely a no brainer to think Akshay Kumar will keel over and give up. Khiladi Kumar is no loser! He has reinvented himself several times before and he can do so even today. So do we put our money on lucky Akki? Not necessarily, but we still believe that Akshay Kumar can bounce back and get back into the race and be that khiladi that he is.
