Akshay Kumar will regain his box office throne with Selfiee? ‘He needs to reconsider his choices,’ says trade

Selfiee is a remake of the 2019 Malayalam-language comedy-drama Driving License, which was directed by Lal Jr from a script by Sachy. The original was about a superstar (Prithviraj Sukumaran) famous for his driving skills, who loses his license. The issue, however, spins out of control after he locks horns with a motor inspector (Suraj Venjaramoodu), who happens to be a fan of the actor.

The film trade experts are a bit sceptical about the film’s performance in the theaters. Film producer and trade expert, Girish Johar has pegged the film’s opening day collection at Rs 4-5 crore. He said, “The makers of Selfiee are underplaying it right now. They are not going all out with the promotions.” The number seems to be much lower than what is expected from an Akshay Kumar film. Since 2013, Kumar has mostly had a double-digit opening at the box office. Even his last release, which eventually proved to be a disaster at the ticket counters, managed to earn Rs 15.25 cr on its opening day. He got his career-best opening with the 2019 film Mission Mangal (Rs 29.16 crore).

In the last decade, Akshay Kumar has done 28 films, 14 of which did well at the box office. But, over the years, his career went through different phases ranging from a stable phase from 2014-2017, which was followed by a couple of years which gave him the biggest hits of his career, but he saw a sharp fall in his success rate in 2022, as shown in the graph below.

Kumar got a mix of hits and misses even in what has always been considered his forte — action-comedy and comedy. While his multi-starrer comedies, Good Newwz, Housefull 3 and Housefull 4 pulled people in huge numbers to the cinema halls, his films Singh Is Bliing (2015), Entertainment (2014) and Boss (2013) tanked.

But Kumar found his groove in nationalist dramas which kind of became his cinematic choice for some years. He delivered hits with films like Special 26, Baby, Rustom, Kesari and Sooryavanshi. He accumulated Rs 1085.48 cr just from his nationalist dramas.

Though he has been seeing a lean phase in his career, film distributor Akshaye Rathi still has faith that Kumar will soon get back his groove. He said, “He is an astute businessman and it’s about time that he shifts gears and gets back into the groove that will allow him to score a fantastic number at the box office all over again.”

A look at Akshay Kumar’s performance across genres.

Girish Johar also believes that despite the flops, Akshay Kumar has not lost his fan following and his stardom. People will still go watch a movie for him. “If we analyse the box office trends, when you reach a particular stature, such ups and downs do not matter. You may have a series of bad releases but it doesn’t change your box office standing. If you see Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Ajay Devgn, all of them had such ups and downs in their careers but that has not deterred their stardom. Their fan following has been unhindered and still commands good respect.”

Watch | The trailer of Akshay Kumar and Emraan Hashmi’s Selfiee

He added that Kumar maybe just need to rethink the scripts to which he gives his nod. “Akshay Kumar’s choices post the pandemic have not gone down well with the audiences. Before the pandemic, he was ahead of the curve, that’s why he had a great period. During the pandemic, the audience’s taste has evolved much faster than what he probably envisaged. All it needs is better planning,” he added. Film trade analyst Taran Adarsh believes, “after making 5-6 films in a year, you tend to get overexposed in today’s time.”

Probably, Kumar needs to revisit his own words which he said during an interview with Forbes in 2022. Sharing what are his plans as an actor he had said, “My plan is simple – listen to your audience and deliver to them what you feel will excite and compel them to watch and most importantly enjoy your film.” If only Khiladi Kumar would realise, people are far from having a gala time at his movies.