Why Varun Dhawan is Bollywood's next big thing
In his second straight appearance at India Today’s Mind Rocks Youth Summit in Delhi, Varun Dhawan demonstrated that people never tire of him. If anything his popularity has only grown. With Judwaa 2 releasing soon, the actor had the young crowd at Siri Fort auditorium dancing and even singing to his tunes, as evident by the “Chalti Hai Kya 9 Se 12” video clip up on his Twitter handle.
With a Rs 100 crore superhit under his belt in Badrinath Ki Dulhania, Dhawan has emerged as the next big actor after Ranbir Kapoor and Ranveer Singh. And on his current form, he looks more bankable than the two. In his second release of 2017, Dhawan teams up with his father, David, for the second time for a sequel to the 1997 hit comedy which milks the tried-and-tested formula of laughs, courtesy mistaken identity and a lead actor in a double role.
The trailer of Judwaa 2 suggests that two decades later not much has changed in the commercial entertainment sphere. It unapologetically plays to the gallery with actresses present for song-and-dance routines. It’s Varun who gets to demonstrate his skills as an all-round performer.
With no big release to compete with, the road is clear for Dhawan to score his second hit in a row. But it’s the line-up after Judwaa 2 which shows that the Student of the Year actor has come of age and is eager to push himself with projects with new collaborators.
Next up for Dhawan is October, a Shoojit Sircar-directed and Juhi Chaturvedi-written film, the duo best known for critically acclaimed and popular films Vicky Donor and Piku. Thereafter he does his first film under the Yash Raj Films banner with Sui Dhaaga, a Sharat Katariya-film inspired by the Make-in-India campaign and co-starring Anushka Sharma. The two features look to be his most interesting projects since Badlapur.
Hindi cinema has been missing a young actor who enjoys the mass appeal of the Khans, a phase that Ranbir Kapoor briefly enjoyed during the glory days of Rockstar and Barfi! But that seems in the distant past now. No young actor has been able to match the box office might of Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar. Given Varun’s ability to appease the audience with a masala entertainer and his enthusiasm to do content-driven cinema, he is making a case to join the A league.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)