After Rs 1000 Cr, Director Struggling For Rs 50 Cr

The film industry is a strange place. Things can change pretty quickly over a span of a single Friday. One Friday, you can test box office success and feel like the king of the world and on another Friday, your dreams could get shattered. This could perhaps be applicable in the case of promising young filmmaker Atlee.

Earlier, Atlee entered Bollywood with Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan and tasted mega success. This film went on to collect rupees thousand crore gross at the box office, thanks to the immense footprint of SRK. Even the director of the film, Atlee was appreciated for showcasing SRK in the manner his fans wanted.

The success of Jawan meant that Atlee became a big deal in Bollywood. This is exactly when this commercial director set up a film with Varun Dhawan. This film is titled Baby John and it released on December 25. Atlee, who produced the film kept himself in the midst of things by actively participating in the promotions. With this being a remake of Atlee and Vijay’s Theri, he had a strong voice in the creative process as well.

At one point, Atlee promised on stage that Baby John would make Varun Dhawan the next superstar like how Animal made Ranbir Kapoor.

But this is not even remotely the case, if we look at the box office numbers that are being posted by Baby John. The film has collected just ₹27 crore gross till now. Box office estimates are projecting this film to end up in the range of ₹50 crore gross in full run. It could very well be labelled as a disaster.

Though the early reception for the film wasn’t entirely discouraging, people are simply not turning up to watch it in theatres. The Jawan branding of Atlee is of no consequence here. As it appears, Atlee went from delivering a 1000 crore Jawan to being associated with a 50 crore Baby John.