WILL SARFIRA TURN THE TIDE FOR AKSHAY KUMAR?
Akshay Kumar is back with his second release of the year, Sarfira. It releases tomorrow and is inspired by the life of G R Gopinath, the father of low-cost aviation in India. Sarfira is also the official remake of the 2020 acclaimed Tamil film Soorarai Pottru, which had Suriya in the lead. The story is inspiring and from the trailer, it looks like a faithful remake.
Sadly, the buzz for the film is limited. The subject, though interesting, seems niche for the mass audience. Also, Akshay Kumar’s films aren’t working that well nowadays. 5 years ago, a film like this was a sure-shot success. Some of his films last year like Selfiee and Mission Raniganj were well-made and got acclaim. But they opened at Rs. 2.54 crores and Rs. 2.75 crores respectively. Sarfira hopefully will open better than these films and the hope is that it’ll collect around Rs. 5 crores. And then it should hopefully see a jump on Saturday and Sunday. This is crucial since next week, it’ll face tough competition from Bad Newz.
Even this week, Sarfira has competition in the form of Hindustani 2. It is the sequel to the much-loved 1996 vigilante flick, Hindustani. Kamal Haasan once again reprises the role of Senapathi and Shankar is back as the director. This time, the film also stars Siddharth and Rakul Preet Singh.
Hindustani had worked well in cinemas then but that was 28 years ago. A whole new generation is not aware of that film. Gadar 2 also came 22 years after the first part but the latter had a strong recall value among the youngsters. Hindustani 2 doesn’t have that advantage.
It now remains to be seen which film out of the two – Sarfira and Hindustani 2 – opens better. Hindustani 2 needs to be a really great film in true Shankar style. If that happens, it can be a surprise at the box office.