‘Shehzada’ Fails To Impress, ‘Pathaan’ Continues To Score

Bollywood star Kartik Aaryan’s latest film Shehzada, a remake of Allu Arjun’s 2020 film Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, has earned mere $2.6 million in four days of the release in India. On the other hand, Shah Rukh Khan’s latest blockbuster continued to grab footfalls at the ticket windows as the original Hindi version of Pathaan collected nearly $60 million in India alone. Pathaan – all languages and alll territories included – grossed $122.8 million worldwide in 27 days.

The new film, Shehzada, is directed by Rohit Dhawan, and features Kriti Sanon opposite Aaryan. Manisha Koirala, Paresh Rawal, Ronit Roy and Sachin Khedekar play important roles in the film that has been produced by Bhushan Kumar (T Series), Allu Arvind (Allu Entertainment) and Aman Gill (Brat Films). Aaryan also made his debut as a producer with the film.

Shehzada traces the story of Bantu (Aaryan) who struggles to get one complement from his middle-class father (Rawal) but soon unearths the reality about his biological parents – a millionaire industrialist family. The story is about how Bantu does not use his knowledge of real parents to gain any wealth or a rise in finacial or social status, but fights all odds to make sure his “real family” stays together and the members love and respect each other.

Talking about the film, CEO of movie theatre chain PVR Gautam Dutta had said last week, “People are eager to watch the duo once again on the big screen after Lukka Chuppi and we have already witnessed fantastic ticket-sales at the box office. We look forward to families continuing to turn up in huge numbers, not only over the next few days, but even in the weeks to come.”

Meanwhile, Pathaan became the highest-grossing “Hindi film in its initial run”, as per producers of the film – Yash Raj Films. Starring Deepika Padukone, John Abraham, Dimple Kapadia and Ashutosh Rana in important roles, Pathaan is the fourth movie in YRF’s spy universe. The other films were Salman Khan-starrer Ek Tha Tiger, Tiger Zinda Hai, and Hrithik Roshan’s War.

As for the highest-grossing Indian film, Aamir Khan’s Dangal continues to hold the top spot with a reported earnings $250 million worldwide. In its initial run, the movie earned over $84.5 million and it totalled $120 million after the theatrical release in China.

Trade experts have credited the huge success of Pathaan to two factors, apart from the well-packaged content with a clear view of the targhet audience. First, Pathaan marks Khan’s return to films after nearly five years – he was last seen in Anand L Rai’s Zero (2018) that also featured Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif. Second, the filmmakers used a different marketing strategy for the film, There was very limited, pre-release exposure of the film, and the stars. They avoided the usual PR-set up interviews, sharing ‘making of’ and ‘behind the scene’ videos online and restricted social media interaction for the team. It was only after the release that Khan conducted several ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions online and interacted with his fans and the audiences. The production house also shared ‘making of’, and ‘behind the scene’ videos from the sets of Pathaan, but did so only after the release and success of the film.