After four years, Shah Rukh Khan has finally ousted Aamir Khan to be titled the biggest ever box-office champion.
His latest romantic-comedy has send the cash registers ringing and generated a new record at the box-office, beating Aamir’s four-year-old achievement.
SRK’s ‘Chennai Express’ earned a staggering INR 222-crore up until now, overshadowing Aamir Khan’s 2009 student-drama ‘3 Idiots’ that netted INR 202.47-crore.
It also becomes the second Indian movie to touch the INR 200-crore mark.
Trade analyst Taran Adarsh backed the claims by tweeting the stats. “#ChennaiExpress [Week 4] Fri 81 lacs, Sat 1.14 cr, Sun 1.89 cr, Mon 56 lacs. Grand total: Rs 222.82 cr. All Time Blockbuster.”
For an industry obsessed with the number game, this is a new milestone.
Ever since ‘Chennai Express’ hit the theatres, the media has been broadcasting about how it has broken other records. Especially that of SRK’s “rival” Salman Khan.
Business of Cinema website claimed that SRK broke Salman’s first-day earnings record, with ‘Chennai Express’ making INR33-crore, while ‘Ek Tha Tiger’ made INR 32-crore.
Some industry insiders speculate that SRK’s record-breaking spree is orchestrated to display his bloated star ego, something that had been deflated following his earlier box-office disasters like ‘Ra.One’ and ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’.
Surprisingly, even the movies that were releases after ‘Chennai Express’ – ‘Once Upon Ay Time In Mumbai Dobaara’, ‘Satyagraha’ and ‘Madras Café’ – were unable to put up a good fight at the box-office. And this, despite some boasting of superior script and striking performances.
Again, there are talks about how the producers of ‘Chennai Express’ hogged all the screens, and refused to share screen space with the others, thus limiting their impact considerably.
Although we are unable to validate these claims, we do believe that there can’t be smoke without fire.
In fact, traditionalists and critics are shocked at how a brazen comedy like ‘Chennai Express’ could defeat a far more impactful movie like ‘3 Idiots’.
While’s Aamir’s film boasted of incredible performances, a great story and good music, SRK’s comedy banked purely on clichés and over-the-top action and wit.
A formulaic effort that obviously derails the sensibilities that Bollywood is slowly attempting to redesign.
Many critics even argued that director Rohit Shetty’s take on South Indian culture and accent were highly exaggerated and far from authentic.
“It’s a big, fat bore. A bloated vanity project for an actor capable of so much more,” wrote movie critic Rajeev Masand.
In fact, Rohit’s brand of cinema is known to evoke extreme responses. You either like it, or not. So, it’s shocking how the movie garnered so much goodwill despite churning out “sub-standard material”.
While there’s no concrete evidence or theory how some movies work their magic and some don’t, some believe a lot has to do with the marketing and publicity drives, something that SRK splurged on.
However, Indian news channel IBNLIVE has published a report that all claims of ‘Chennai Express’ turning into the biggest blockbuster of all times isn’t accurate.
They’ve gone to great lengths to adjust all movie earnings based on inflation. And the result, they claim still showed ‘3 Idiots’ as the topper.
Also, Meena Iyer of Times of India also explained how ‘Chennai Express’ benefitted from more number of screens when compared to ‘3 Idiots’.
“CE released in 2,550 cinemas with 3,650 screens. On the other hand, 3 Idiots released in approximately 1,149 screens. Chennai Express is a Ramzan Eid (2013) release, while 3 Idiots was a Christmas (2009) release.”
Even the ticket prices aren’t comparable.
Sonil Dedhia of Rediff.com further argued that the lack of a central data collection agency results in varying numbers being floated around.
So, when SRK’s team claims that ‘Chennai Express’ is the biggest grosser of all times, some trade analysts might disagree.
“In the first week of the film's release Taran Adarsh had tweeted that ‘Chennai Express’ collected INR 100.42-crore during the opening three-day weekend, while Amul Mohan tweeted collections as INR 90.75-crore,” wrote Sonil.
“Shah Rukh’s publicist claimed the film collected INR 156.70-crore in its first week while Amul Mohan put the collections at INR 147-crore.”
Surely SRK hasn’t given much thought to the arguments that question his stint at the top. He’s currently celebrating the victory that has eluded him for so long. But whether he would be able to sustain his position on the top is something we aren’t entirely sure.
With Ranbir Kapoor’s ‘Besharam’, Aamir’s big action flick ‘Dhoom3’ and Hrithik Roshan’s superhero thriller ‘Krrish3’ just months away from hitting the theatres, it could seem like SRK’s success run might be short-lived.
Well, only time will tell.
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