‘Hindostan’ tanks big time with measly RM74.4 million
Thugs of Hindostan is the BIGGEST SHOCKER of 2018.
MUMBAI: Thugs of Hindostan starring Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan is tanking big time.
After five days at the box office in India, it has only managed to earn 1.29 billion rupees ( RM74.4 million). That’s only about 42 per cent of the estimated RM176 million in production costs, which makes it the biggest Bollywood production to date.
It looks to be shaping up as the biggest Bollywood flop ever. With epic productions, only a thin line separates films that are either hailed or bailed. For Hindostan, producers must be frantically seeking a way to bail out this sinking ship.
Aamir and Amitabh must be wondering what went wrong — or whether most of the moviegoers could recognise them behind those bushy beards.
Reviewers are scoffing that the film producers tried too hard to mimic Pirates of the Caribbean.
From Sunday to Monday, the takings had nosedived by 68 per cent. Amitabh must be stroking his beard in panic. Especially when this was supposed to be this year’s Diwali blockbuster.
The movie, which also stars Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh, had opened last Thursday with a healthy 522 million rupees, with most of the cash coming from the Hindi version of the movie.
But bad word of mouth — not to mention widespread badmouthing online — led to its titanic sinking.
Film critic and trade analyst Taran Adarsh has been going to town with the declaration that Thugs of Hindostan “is the BIGGEST SHOCKER of 2018.”
On Twitter, he shared that the film was neither working at multiplexes nor single screens. Adarsh also posted the detailed business figures of the epic action-adventure.
Despite the bad press, Hindostan is an exuberantly excessive masala of swashbuckling heroics, broaderthan- comedy, propulsively choreographed action, and raucously caffeinated song- anddance sequences.
Writer- director Vijay Krishna Acharya, a creative force behind the popular Dhoom movies, has borrowed freely from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, even to the point of having Indian superstar Aamir Khan often coming across as a smudged carbon of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow while playing a similarly unreliable rogue.
During the darkly majestic opening scenes — set in 1795, when the Indian subcontinent was known as Hindostan — Acharya provides the impetus for a tale of rebellion, revenge, and redemption as members of a royal clan are killed by British troops representing ruthless colonists of the East India Company.
That’s the script. But instead of colonists, bad reviews are killing Hindostan. It could turn out to be the worst career performance for both Aamir and Amitabh. Even movie pirates may spurn this.
Taran Adarsh, film critic and trade analyst