‘Mission Mangal’ has turned out to be a major hit. What is remarkable is the fact that the film which was viewed as city-centric or multiplex-friendly is doing good business in smaller centres as well. While the content has struck a chord with the audience and every member of the cast has done a good job, one man who definitely deserves a lot of credit for bringing in the numbers is Akshay Kumar. The actor, who has been investing in high-concept films since the last couple of years, is in a league of his own as he continues to do 3-4 films every year, majority of which strike the bull’s eye at the box-office.
Despite delivering hits consistently, none of Akshay’s films have managed to touch the 200-crore mark at the domestic box-office. The mega-budgeted ‘2.0’ which had him playing the antagonist also stopped short of a few crores from touching the figure of 200 crores. While ‘Mission Mangal’ looks set to be his biggest hit, beating the collections of his biggest grosser ‘Kesari’, which incidentally was his last release, the actor might just enter into the 200 crore, and go much beyond that, with his next film ‘Housefull 4’.
The ‘Housefull’ franchise has been very successful what with every film in the series turning out to be a bigger hit than the last. In an earlier interview, Touted to be the most expensive film to have been made in India, ‘Housefull 4’ deals with the theme of incarnation and has a massive scale to boast of. Unlike a ‘Mission Mangal’ or a ‘Good News’ which has a slightly limited reach because of the subject, ‘Housefull 4’, just like the other films in the franchise, is expected to be an out-and-out commercial film and should have one of the widest releases for a Hindi film in India and globally.
With the kind of scale at display and the money at stake, getting into the 200 crore club is the least one expects from ‘Houssefull 4’. After ‘Housefull 4’, Akshay has films like ‘Sooryavanshi’ and ‘Bachchan Pandey’, among others in the pipeline. With the kind of line-up the actor has, one expects him to deliver at least one 300 crore success by the time 2020 draws to a close.