Salman Khan’s Eid release this year, Tubelight has failed to light up the box office and has left the film’s distributors distraught. The war-drama failed to impress the critics when it released on the friday of June 23. They described the plot of the film to be wafer-thin with its lead actor struggling to give the film, the performance it deserved. But, critics being unimpressed with a Salman Khan release is barely news. Bhai fans tend to flood cinema halls irrespective of the reviews the film receives. So, when even the die-hard fan-following of Salman Khan fails to bring in the ticket collections, something must have seriously gone wrong. The film’s 10 day box office collection stands at an approximate 115 crore (official figures awaited).
The people who are really feeling the pinch of this box office disappointment are Tubelight’s distributors who bought the film’s theatrical rights at exorbitant prices, purely basing their decision on the past success of Salman Khan films like Sultan and Bajrangi Bhaijaan. These films set the cash registers ringing and proved to be the highest grossing films of the actor’s movie career. But as they say, bollywood is an unpredictable land and there is no formula to success. Even though, Salman Khan was attributed with knowing the formula, since his films invariably did well at the ticket counters. Tubelight is testament to the fact that even Bhai can fail.
With the film’s Week 1 (7 days) collection figure being 106.86 crore, the weekend 2 box office figures approximately brings the over 10 Day collection to 115 crores. According to film critic and trade analyst, Taran Adarsh, Tubelight has the lowest week 1 box office figures among the last few eid releases featuring Salman Khan.
Salman and Eid – Week 1…
2011: #Bodyguard ₹ 115 cr [9 days]2012: #ETT ₹ 154.21 cr [9 days]2014: #Kick ₹ 164.09 cr [7 days]— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) June 30, 2017
Salman and Eid – Week 1…
2015: #BB ₹ 184.62 cr [7 days]2016: #Sultan ₹ 229.16 cr [9 days]2017: #Tubelight ₹ 106.86 cr [7 days]— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) June 30, 2017
Tubelight, directed by Kabir Khan, is a war drama starring Sohail Khan, Chinese star Zhu Zhu, Xhid artist Matin Rey Tangu, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, and late actor Om Puri in pivotal roles with Salman Khan as the lead. Media reports suggest that the film will have to earn a minimum of 300-350 crore, for the distributors to recover their money and going by the box office figures so far, looks like the film distributors are bound to lose some money.
