Come October 2 and there will indeed be a war at the box office. Hrithik Roshan, who has played various characters in the action genre through films such as Koi Mil Gaya, Lakshya, Krrish and Dhoom 2, will have a face-off with Tiger Shroff, who has been the poster boy of all things action since his debut film Heropanti (2014).
Tiger, much like Hrithik, has also experimented with his roles in action films. The young star, who refers to Hrithik as his 'guru', has intricately created a niche for himself as the vengeful hero of the current times. His films have a great box-office opening and with War, he will seek to set the record straight for his last release Student of The Year 2.
War has got all the makings of a blockbuster and fans are expecting a lot from the actioner. The makers are heavily banking on the Hrithik versus Tiger factor. Yash Raj Films is producing for Siddharth Anand, who created box office magic earlier with Hrithik and Katrina-starrer Bang Bang (2014).
Howsoever, the two lead stars, Hrithik and Tiger may hold each other in high regards, and the promotions of War have been a testimony to their budding camaraderie, there will still be a deep seated insecurity (if that is the right word) in Hrithik knowing that to get to the highest box office opener of his career yet, he will not be the solo lead.
And Tiger will surely be happy to bank in on his stardom in this cut throat competition for popularity in the next decade of action filmmaking. Putting Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Ranveer Singh, Ajay Devgn and Sidharth Malhotra in the mix, there are only a handful of male stars doing hardcore action entertainers in Bollywood and Tiger is close at the heels of these big stars.
Tiger delivered Baaghi (2016) with Rs 11.87 crore opening day collection in May 2016 and Baaghi 2 made a whopping Rs 25.10 crore on day one in March 2018.
Hrithik, on the other hand, has already delivered a hit this season with Super 30, which opened at Rs 11.83 crore on day one of its release in July 2019. But Tiger's Student of The Year 2 opened at Rs 12.06 crore, a couple of months earlier.
Fact of the matter being, it will take Tiger's star power and his pull, supplemented by Hrithik's years of experience and his magnetism, to manage the heist of the year, which War is expected to be for the two stars. And in this collaboration, Tiger has nothing to lose. On the upside, War will be Tiger's biggest opener for sometime, but then he has a Rambo film coming up in 2020 and Baaghi 3 for the upcoming year as well.
In fact, early estimates suggest that War may open up to a whopping Rs 45 crore on Day 1, since its a national holiday, and the pre-release sales have already fetched Rs 25 crore for the makers, reported hindustantimes.com.
A factor that may affect War's grand success, although by a minuscule margin, is Hollywood release Joker. Joaquin Phoenix's Joker is expected to have a decent opening in metro cities, thus eating into War's share. But the game changer, at the bottom of it all, is the script, execution and a good word-of-mouth for War. Hrithik and Tiger's poster faces may only create the necessary buzz in the first week, but for later sustenance, the film has to be good, on par with Hollywood standards at least.
For the makers, Yash Raj Films, coming off a major disappointment that Thugs of Hindostan turned out to be in 2018, is also banking on War big time, considering its their only big release this year, apart from Arjun Kapoor-Parineeti Chopra's Sandeep Aur Pink Faraar and Rani Mukerji's Mardaani 2, neither of which are anticipated to be on par with War in terms of box office business. However, that is too early to bet on.
Coming back to Hrithik and Tiger, the two stars and the promotions team of War came up with the unique idea of putting word out separately by the two stars. This was done keeping in mind the film's scale and what it could potentially offer. Shedding light in the matter, Siddharth had said, "We want to hold the magic of seeing them (Hrithik and Tiger) going after each other and increase the anticipation for the movie. Hrithik and Tiger have fought each other mercilessly and we wanted to translate this on-screen rivalry into an off-screen conversation point."
Maybe this war is for real. Not whether the film will do good business or not, but rather who is the bigger star of the two, if an objective eye can be maintained.
War releases on October 2, alongside Joker and Chiranjeevi's Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy.
Which film would you place your bet on this week?
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