Tubelight has been the biggest disappointment of Salman Khan in recent times. It has been conceded by everyone, from he himself to his fans, that the movie was a resounding flop. 
But compare even that with Jab Harry Met Sejal and you get an idea of just how much Shah Rukh Khan’s stock has fallen. Because the first week numbers of Jab Harry Met Sejal’s collections are in and they are way behind Tubelight. 
Even in the revenues of flops, Salman seems to be miles ahead of Shah Rukh. Jab Harry Met Sejal collected Rs58 crores in its first week, while Tubelight was at Rs106 crores. That is a vast gulf. And what should be especially worrying for Shah Rukh is that his earlier movie Raees, which was also a flop in terms of what is expected from superstars, in fact made Rs122 crore in its first week. So the present one has done half that business. 
There are factors that make it even worse. Because while Raees was a gangster flick, Jab Harry Met Sejal was a romantic movie. This is the genre that accounts for Shah Rukh’s superstardom from the mid-1990s starting with Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Romance has been a safe zone for him and his fans had always accepted him in the role of the great lover. But they seem to have given up on even this aspect of Shah Rukh. 
There was a time when he couldn’t do any wrong no matter what movies he chose. And now it is the exact opposite, no matter what movie he does – from experimental to commercial, none of them click. This might be ominous for him. If a superstar cannot even guarantee Rs100 crore with the best directors, producers and marketing budgets, then it will not be long before he is no longer considered a superstar. And it is never clear when this happens. 
Amitabh Bachchan saw it painfully drag on from the late 1980s for over a decade until it became certain that he no longer occupied the top slot.
In Shah Rukh’s case, it has already been close to three or four years since he pulled anything big to merit his status as the King Khan, a period in which Aamir and Salman have been breaking humongous records. He must be thinking hard about what he can possibly do but there is little space for him to manoeuvre now. He is reportedly playing a dwarf in his next movie that releases in 2018. Much is in store in that movie for him.  

Return from drugs

The world has forgotten about Prateik Babbar. He made an impressive debut in 2008 in a small role in Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na. Then he had a big role in the indie film Dhobi Talao, directed by Kiran Rao, Aamir Khan’s wife. After that he managed to get lead roles in a couple of movies that flopped and soon was out of sight. 
But apparently he is going to make a reappearance as a negative character in Baaghi 2, a sequel to the hit Baaghi that had starred Tiger Shroff.  Even if as a villain, at least finding some work should be heartening. But why was he out of the scene till now? 
Apparently, he had a big problem with drug addiction but has now managed to get over it. This was revealed by Prateik himself in an article he wrote for a newspaper. He said that it had started at the age of 13 and he had then graduated over the years to hard drugs like cocaine. And it reached a point where he couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without his fix. But he finally decided to clean himself up after a life threatening experience induced by drugs. Now, he says he is free of drugs and promises to remain so. 

Sacked finally

As the chief of the Censor Board, that certifies and cuts objectionable scenes from movies, the infamy of Pahlaj Nihalani had been unrelenting. He had antagonised an extraordinary number of filmmakers by justifying the merciless censoring of their movies. And this, when the movies he had produced himself in the 1990s were full of sleaze and double meanings. 
Bollywood had been perplexed that despite their numerous complaints, the government, which appointed him, had not thought it fit to take action against his dictatorial behaviour.  
But his luck has finally run out. He has been removed from his position and replaced with the lyricist Prasoon Joshi, who is a much more acceptable personality for the post given his reputation as a sensitive poet. He is expected to be much more liberal in not imposing censorship on movies. He is also not known to be political and therefore unbiased. 
What perhaps tipped it for Nihalani was when he created hurdles for filmmakers who are supposed to be close to the government. Like Madhur Bhandarkar’s Indu Sarkar. So, he was beginning to be hated across the board in Bollywood and there was probably no one left to defend him. His tenure was anyway going to end in January, so his sacking probably means that they didn’t even want to give him an honourable exit.  

A fair reaction

Unlike father Rishi Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor has been much more dignified in his reactions after the fate of Jagga Jasoos. Rishi had gone on a public tirade against its director Anurag Basu once it became clear that the movie had flopped. He alleged that Basu had been high handed about not taking anyone’s opinion or finishing the movie on schedule, implying that the director was solely responsible for the debacle. 
But that misses the point that Ranbir, as producer and lead actor, should have been as much in command of Jagga Jasoos. He could at least have been a controlling force if he saw things going off track. But he has been decent enough not to pin the entire blame on Basu. At an event, reporters asked Ranbir about Rishi’s targeting of Basu and he said that it was probably because his father felt protective about him. But that he himself had no complaint. He said that they had been working on the movie for three years and everyone knew what they were doing. He also claimed that he took the experience as a learning process instead of a failure. 

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