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Actor Akshay Kumar is currently going through a particularly rough patch, with back-to-back box office flops this year. But this isn’t the first time that the actor has experienced career setbacks. In the mid-90s, Akshay appeared in over half-a-dozen flops in a row, chipping at his bankability in the film industry, and making producer second guess how much they should invest in him.
Producer Suneel Darshan, in a new interview with RJ Siddharth Kannan, recalled how Akshay ‘wooed’ him for work during that phase, and won him over. Suneel remembered how a dejected Akshay told him that the producer of his most recent film hadn’t even bothered to put up billboards of the film, because they thought of him as a liability.
Suneel said that he felt ‘so bad’ for Akshay, and believed that his morale had been crushed. So, he decided to invest in a large billboard for their film Jaanwar, with a special mandate for the people behind the billboards. “I said do one thing, don’t put the two heroines, only put Akshay Kumar. So, what people would view as a liability to a project, I was seriously treating him as an asset.”
Jaanwar became a hit, and Akshay bounced back. The experienced phenomenal success in the 2000s and 2010s. But his last three theatrical releases — Bachchhan Paandey, Samrat Prithviraj and Raksha Bandhan — have all tanked badly. At a recent press event, the actor admitted that he’s introspecting about his career.
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