Mumbai: ‘Airlift’, the most successful film of 2016 so far and a certified superhit, has now gone Tax Free in Bihar. Though the decision has come in the fourth week run of the film, it is still being hailed for the kind of recognition that has come for the Akshay Kumar starrer.
“It is not about the monetary gains that the film would gain from this point on but the fact that good cinema has been appreciated,” says our source, “This will go down in records that a film with such a theme and treatment was acknowledged for its class and entertainment quotient, and hence was declared Tax Free. For director Raja Menon and the production team of Bhushan Kumar, Vikram Malhotra and Nikkhil Advani, this is a moment of high indeed.”
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With current collections in the upwards of 125 crore and the film aiming to close around the 130 crore mark, the film is already amongst the Top-20 biggest grossers of all times. This isn’t all as it is the biggest offbeat film to achieve this feat, as the 18 films above it – right from ‘PK’ to ‘Singham Returns’ – are all out and out commercial flicks.
“No one other than Akshay Kumar would understand this better”, an industry veteran comments, “17 years back, his ‘Jaanwar’ (1999) had done blockbuster business in Bihar. That was a true-blue masala commercial flick. Today, the same actor’s offbeat film ‘Airlift’ turns out to be his second highest grosser ever (after ‘Rowdy Rathore’) and gets a Tax Free status in U.P. and Bihar – two of the biggest commercial territories of the country. If that doesn’t reflect the kind of career progression that Akshay has made, what else does that?”
