Good Times Are Here For Bollywood, Hits Pour Out In 2018

2018 promises  to be one  of  the  best years of Bollywood at the boxoffice  in living memory. We are only into the the second month  of  the  year and there’s already a torrent of successes spearheaded by Padmaavat which is  expected to touch the 300-crore mark by the end  of  February.

The second big release of 2018 R Balki’s PadMan  is also expected to touch the 100 mark in the  near future.

Now there is Neeraj Pandey’s gripping political-espionage thriller on  the teacher and  the   ‘taut’ Aiyaary which  is expected to be  the third success of 2018. Coming  up in  the  next   few weeks are the Anushkha Shetty supernatural thriller Pari and the  other political thriller Parmanu: The  Story of Pokhran and the  swipe at suburban alliances in  Luv (Pyaar Ka Punchnaama) Ranjan’s  Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety.

All these are expected  to achieve various degress of success in the first-quarter  of 2018.

So is 2018  a blockbuster year  for Bollywood?

“It  certainly looks like it,” enthuses trade analyst Atul Mohan. “The year is looking fantastic.There is variety and  quality this  year,  plus some of the biggest stars in their most ambitious projects. In 40 days of 2018 we have already made 15% of what we made in entire 2017. So far so good and I hope we maintain this for the rest of the year and the lineup is very very impressive this year.”

Trade expert Amod Mehra  points out an  interesting historical confluence of the stars in 2018 of the Bollywood galaxy. “It is going to be the best year this decade as the box-office  is going to be BIG with a bonanza of hits.The biggest supertars  are all coming this  year in films that are expected  to sweep the boxoffice.  Akshay Kumar has already had a  hit this year. He has one more(Gold) coming up. Salman Khan has two releases Bharat and Race 3. Hrithik Roshan has  the  mathematician Anand Kumar’s bio-pic Super 30 while Aamir Khan has Thugs Of Hindustan. Shah  Rukh Khan teams with director Aanad Rai for  the  first time in Zero and Ranveer Singh and Varun Dhawan team  up with Kabir Khan and  Shoojit Sircar, respectively , for ’83  and  October.Ajay Devgan  has three releases and  the  biggest superstar  of  India Rajinikanth has two releases.2018 doesn’t leave  out any  of the superstars. It is  sitaaron ki baarat  this year.”

It remains  to be seen  how much of these top-notch names translate  into  big bucks at  the  boxoffice.

Says  the Padman, Pari and Parmanu producer Prernaa Arora, “2018 definitely  looks like the game-changing year for Hindi cinema. We have almost every A-lister superstar crammed  into the year. All we need to do is ensure high-quality-content to showcase the presence  of these superstars. Without content, stars are not able to rise to the occasion.”