Good grief… 65 trumps 50
Rajinikanth’s Kabali does better business in its first weekend than Salman Khan’s latest Sultan in the corresponding period. But shouldn’t we be pitting younger actors against each other instead?
The weird thing about competition is that, like statistics, it can prove anything you want it to prove. And so much is being made of Rajinikanth’s Kabali doing better business in its first weekend than Sultan did in the corresponding time the weekend it was released. Rs 43 crore vs Rs 36.5 crore (according to boxoffice sources). Which is all very well, but is it the whole story?
It isn’t. Sultan had the benefit of two extra days, it was released on a Wednesday (Eid), giving Sultan the benefit of two days over Kabali which opened on a Friday. Kabali releasing in two extra languages over Sultan counteracted this. Besides the original Tamil, it was dubbed in Hindi and Telugu whereas Sultan released in Hindi only.
But even this isn’t important when you consider the age of these two actors. Rajini is 65 and Salman is nearing 51. Is this how we prepare for the future as we have been doing in almost every other field? How many years could these two actors have between them to play hero? Five each maybe… what then? By then, the next string of actors, and I refer to Bollywood here, would themselves be too old to pick up the mantle.
The Akshays (who is doing some remarkable work now), Ajays and Hrithiks would be nearing the 50-mark, if not actually past it. Among the younger lot, and there are many and some are talented too, there are Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor who consistently do good work. And how many films can they sustain between them?
It is often said that in the next 3 years, more than half of India’s population will be under the age of 30. The millenials will overtake the non. Shouldn’t we be grooming actors to take their rightful place in the sun then? But as long as the amount of money an actor’s film makes is our reference point for success, that isn’t going to happen and no amount of new wave, indie or non-mainstream cinema, is going to make a difference.
The other news of significance this week is the Rajasthan High Court’s acquittal of Salman Khan in the Black Buck case of 1998, almost 8 months after the Mumbai High Court’s acquittal of him in the 2002 hit-and-run case. With this, Salman now can be said to have a reputation as pure as driven snow, little misdemeanours and bratty behaviour notwithstanding. Well… so be it.
Let me end with a small story of the other superstar of the week, Rajinikanth. When Rajini was working in Hindi films too, his favourite place of stay would be Sun-n-Sand hotel in Juhu. I had covered quite a few of his shoots in Mumbai and Bangalore and Chennai, and knew him well. One evening I happened upon him there, quietly eating dinner all by himself. He was already a superstar in Tamil films and moderately well-known in Bollywood. He politely declined my invitation to join my group, finished his dinner with the minimum of fuss and left to go to sleep. That is the Rajini I like remembering. Not for his role in Kabali, which, for all the money it has made, is just like any old 1980’s Hindi gangster film.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of SpotboyE.com.
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