Is Salman Khan the Rajesh Khanna of this decade. The performance of his last few movies at the box office point towards this. Like Kaka he too is delivering hit after hit and drawing a flood of masses into the theaters.
His Ek Tha Tiger has set a box office record by collecting Rs 33 crore on the first day, a cool Rs 10 crore more than Agneepath. It also is the fastest film to collect Rs 100 crore in less than five days. The Tiger is following the trail set by Salman's earlier box office super hits. In 2010 Dabangg collected
Rs 215 crore, in 2011 Ready made Rs184 crore and Bodyguard earned Rs 230 crore at the world wide box office. The Tiger has already crossed Rs 150 crore and is on its way to cross Rs 200 crore in domestic box office collections.There was Amitabh Bachhan with his angry young man image, Shah Rukh Khan with his high voltage and high energy roles and Aamir with his immense talent but it is Salman who connects with the audience like Rajesh Khanna did three decades ago. His connection is with the heart of the audience and they love to flock to see him remove his shirt on the screen and sing songs with him.
The advent of multiplexes and Karan Johar type directors had made the audiences move away from Hindi movies to a large extent. Karan Johar and his type made movies with large sets and multi cast, esentially for the NRI's who keep longing for their lost roots. The multiplexes gave rise to urban centric movies being increasingly produced.
It was Salman whose movies were more earthy and Dabangg brought the masses back into the theaters. His movies are full of action with comic scenes as relief
in between and strong music to support his simple dancing steps the type which had made the yesteryear actor Bhagwan very popular. The masses want to see heroes who are capable of doing all things and be victorious in the end. Keep it simple and rustic is the formula.In a country of Ramayana and Mahabharta our stories have to be huge and drawn from our culture and full of characters emoting as many rasas's of the nine rasa's of our nataka's legacy. The audiences immediately connect with such stories.
Salman's appearance in TV shows like 10 Ka Dum and Big Boss also gave him a huge mass base, which is now supporting him at the box office. Another feature is the very simple dresses he wears on and off screen. He continues to live in his one bedroom apartment unlike other heroes. He has sucessfully cultivated a simple man image which bring him closer to his audiences while maintaining his star status.
Now all eyes are on the December release of his Dabangg 2 . Will it overtake the Tiger at the box office? If it does history will have been created. When his movies dont deliver the masses do not blame him. It is the director who could not utilise him properly. Gold is after all Gold in any form and in any combination. Up there Rajesh Khanna must be smiling that the hero is back.
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