Akshay Kumar is back! In Mumbai and on top of the box office charts with his latest film, last Thursday’s release, Shankar’s sci-fi fantasy 2.0 with the legendary Rajnikanth. Incredibly, the Bollywood superstar has not yet seen his film. He was in Thailand attending the destination wedding in Phuket of his friends Kishore and Mala Samtani’s daughter Divya. Now that Akshay is back, his first priority is to catch a local screening of 2.0. He’s going to see the film with his daughter Nitara. She does not know Shankar from Rajnikanth. All young Nitara wants to do is urgently see Papa’s “Birdman” film.
The film, which released on a non-holiday Thursday last week, has broken all records for a big opening in Bollywood. That too for a dubbed Hindi film. On Thursday – 2.0 collected Rs. 19.50 crore, Friday – Rs. 17.50 crore, Saturday – Rs. 24 crore, and Sunday – Rs. 34 crore. That takes its collection to Rs. 95 crore just in Hindi. The all India and worldwide collection figures are already in stratosphere and being awaited from its Chennai-based Lyca Productions. It is estimated to be in the Rs. 400-plus range. The figures for 2.0, Bollywood trade sources say, make for Akshay’s biggest opening. More than even the actor’s 2012 action film Rowdy Rathore that was a blockbuster hit and a major commercial success.
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(L) Akshay Kumar's still from the film 2.0; (R) Akshay with his daughter Nitara Bhatia[/caption]
Akshay, meanwhile, is not going to sit back and enjoy his year ending success. The actor has four films on hand that he is simultaneously working on. There’s Sajid Nadiadwala’s comedy Housefull 4 for which some patchwork is required and Karan Johar’s Kesari whose shooting will resume at Film City soon. Meanwhile, Akshay also starts Karan’s comedy-romance-drama Good News with Kareena and R. Balki’s space film Mission Mangal that the actor stars in with Vidya Balan, Sonakshi Sinha, Taapsee Pannu, Kriti Kulhari and Nithya Menon. It cannot get better than this, can it?
