When was the last time that the King Khans, Aamir, Shahrukh and Salman, gave a blockbuster? Aamir had none in the last five years although he does very less movies. His Dangal, released in 2016 was his last one. Shahrukh’s last blockbuster was Chennai Express which was released in 2013. It became a blockbuster although it didn’t have a great story thanks to the audience that believed in going to theatres for some kind of entertainment albeit senseless. Salman Khan was the only one who gave a blockbuster in the last five years with his pure action movie, Tiger Zinda Hai. This has been the fate of the big Khans in the last five years.
I think we have a reached a stage in Bollywood where the audience is holding it for much higher standards, now that they have seen the standards of the movies churned out by Tollywood, Kollywood, Sandalwood and Mollywood. The big Khans seem to be struggling to get a good script and have to settle with some mediocre ones or some remakes from the Indian cinema in the south. Probably, Covid made things worse for them as everyone latched on to much better content coming up in OTT platforms and started to appreciate the work more of the not so glamorous but great actors like Manoj Bajpai, Pankaj Tripathi and the likes. The movies of the King Khans based on their box office performance obviously did not meet the standards of a blockbuster for the Indian audience albeit some sporadic hits.
Several movies of Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan are in the pipeline but not sure if any of them would be a blockbuster given the changed audience mood and interest today. In the last five years, Shahrukh has given two flops and one semi-hit, Salman has managed to give one blockbuster in 2017 and rest all were semi-hits and flops and Aamir has just done two movies with one flop and other where he plays more of a cameo in Secret Superstar which released in 2017. Aamir Khan’s upcoming release, Laal Singh Chaddha, is in for a rocky ride as the Hindu audience doesn’t seem to be in a mood to forgive his earlier comments about intolerance in India and portrayal of Hindu gods in PK. This movie is also not an Aamir Khan original and is “inspired” by a great movie in Hollywood called the Forrest Gump. Aamir doesn’t seem to come close to Tom Hanks and his expressions seemed to be similar to PK. A comment in social media said, “BTW, who sells gol gappas (panipuri) in a train”, which I thought actually made sense. Looks like the perfectionist is running out of good script ideas and is losing his form quite fast.
The Hindi-speaking audience has shown more penchant for B-Town movies showcasing the life of a common man that they can relate to and appreciate more easily. The flashy Karan Johar kinds of movies don’t seem to capture the imagination of movie goers today. Bollywood directors don’t seem to be able to do history based blockbusters like RRR or Bahubali that the Telugu industry seems to have mastered. The Big Khans never were good in historical movies anyways and will never fit into common man roles like Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazudding Siddique and the likes can so easily portray. They will have to hang on to genres like action, romance or drama which will not run unless it’s something like a KGF which again doesn’t seem to be the strength of the big directors in Bollywood who sign up the Khans. Remember, I am talking about blockbusters here and not the usual hits that doesn’t need superstars like the Khans anymore.
To sum up, I think it’s the end of the road for the Big Khans in Bollywood. Bollywood is going to slowly transform itself into the trends that the other language movies are setting especially in the south of India. Given their age going against them, their dwindling box office collections and the pressure on Bollywood to change, it will not be long when Bollywood will say thanks for everything and move on beyond the Khans.
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