Neither SRK nor Aamir; Salman is undisputed Sultan of box office
The Salman Khan starrer Sultan has raked in close to Rs 180 crore within five days of its release in the domestic market. The film's overseas scorecard is no less than Rs 90 crore approximately.
Clearly, Bollywood's 50-year-old superstar is unstoppable when it comes to delivering the numbers at the box office, which are enviable, to put it mildly.
That's not all, Sultan is the star's highest opener ever and is the tenth film to make more than Rs 100 crore at the ticket windows.
His other 100-crore-films include Dabangg, Ready, Bodyguard, Ek Tha Tiger, Dabangg 2, Jai Ho, Kick, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo.
Meanwhile, Shah Rukh Khan has only six films, which have made it to the elusive 100-crore club, and Aamir Khan, who completes the Khan triumvirate, has four films to his credit.
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| Salman Khan in Sultan. |
Interestingly, it was Aamir's Ghajini in 2009, which kicked off the trend of films being considered successful only when they invariably scored a century.
A cursory look at Salman Khan's filmography since 2010 clearly indicates that he is the "Sultan of the single screens".
Before Dabangg, Salman's films had a 50-50 chance of either hitting the bull's eye or turning out to be embarrassing disasters like Marigold: An Adventure in India and Main Aur Mrs Khanna, to name a few.
However, his turn as the cop-in-disguise who parades himself as a gangster in director Prabhu Deva's 2009 action flick Wanted, which turned out to be a massive hit, made the star realise that his fan base was quite clearly made up of the masses.
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| Salman Khan in Dabanng 2. |
Every film post Dabangg has showcased the star, as Salman Khan even when he has laboured to play a character. His fans couldn't get enough of him.
As long as his films were replete with the quintessential swagger, the whistle inducing dialogues, the typically quirky dance moves and the choreographed fight sequences, his fans lapped it up without a question or whimper.
What became apparent was that Salman Khan needed to play himself on screen.
However, with Kabir Khan's Bajrangi Bhaijaan and his recent blockbuster Sultan, the actor is upping the ante in his own way and trying to reinvent himself, even though he doesn't need to.
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| Salman Khan and Harshaali Malhotra in a still from Bajrangi Bhaijaan. |
With Sultan, Salman Khan has also ensured that a well-made commercial film (as said by a number of critics), which centres on sports, has the potential to rewrite box office history.
Considering his stardom overrides every other aspect of his films, it also becomes imperative for the star to pick scripts that pander to his inimitable and unmatched public persona.
A film's earnings stem from selling of distribution rights, satellite rights and music rights. While most of the bidding happens when the film is in production, Salman Khan's name attached to a film makes it a sure-shot reckoner owing to the reputation of his films being money-minting projects.
Clearly, producers are betting their money on Salman Khan as he now almost comes with the guarantee of being the indisputable Sultan of the box office.
According to reports, the actor also doesn't charge a fee during the film's making. Its profit sharing after the film has been declared a hit, which earns him his moolah.
With budgets of films under control and the star's fee not weighing down producers, making a film with Salman Khan looks like every producer's dream.
The fact is that his recent alleged misogynistic statements and a past embroiled in controversies have hardly cast any aspersions on his stardom or have hardly had any effect on his box office.
This goes to show how as a country we thrive on the celebration of an undeniable brand of machismo which might be toxic, to say the least.
To quote a dialogue from yet another celebrated sports film, it's all about, "Show me the money".
Salman Khan's films now do just that.