The very humble ₹100-cr club (in some cases with a little fixing) started its journey with Aamir Khan’s Ghajini (2008). In 10 years, around 55-odd films have crossed the magical figure. Today, the beauty of this whole exercise is that it’s happening with alarming regularity. Wowsie! Cinema, which was once about content, is now being celebrated more for commerce. Like a reputed filmmaker says, “If you aren’t laughing all the way to the bank, then it is pointless making films." Publisher of the trade journal Box Office India, Nitin Tej Ahuja, in his editorial note last week, took up this topic and made some rather sharp observations.
Besides listing the films that according to their statistics have touched the magical number at the box office, Ahuja wrote and we quote, “The Indian film industry has been around for almost a century before a Hindi film managed to collect ₹100 crore at the domestic box office (Ghajini, which released in December 24, 2008), the so-called ‘Club-100’ has seen sustained growth in its membership since.”
Why go into history? Take the immediate examples. In 2018 alone, the cash registers have been ringing continuously. While Raj Kumar Gupta’s Raid looks poised to go in the direction of a ton, other films that have already achieved the feat are Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat ( ₹286 Cr), Luv Ranjan’s Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety ( ₹101 Cr) and Ahmed Khan’s Baaghi 2 ( ₹ 104 Cr).
Of course, the ₹ 350-cr club still has admitted only Aamir Khan with Dangal ( ₹374.53 Cr) and the ₹ 300-cr club membership, which is marked by super-premium, is reserved for Salman Khan with Tiger Zinda Hai ( ₹ 339 Cr), Sultan ( ₹ 300.67 Cr) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan ( ₹315.49 Cr). But seeing Tiger Shroff’s quick entry into Club-100, it looks like several more records will be set in the near future. Guess, it is raining mega bucks in Bollywood’s backyard. Bring out the bubbly. B-Town has got its own Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya clones, all capable of hitting the ball out of the park!
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 "Baaghi 2, Padmaavat and Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety")
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