The Republic Day of India for the past couple of years has been witnessing the release of some of the most hyped and anticipated films. On January 25, 2023, Shah Rukh Khan shattered records as he returned with Pathaan, directed by Siddharth Anand. The director decided to try his luck once again, and on the same date in 2024, he dropped his latest film Fighter in theatres, starring Hrithik Roshan.
For Anand it must have been a big gamble to release Fighter this year on the day the biggest blockbuster of his career had released last year, but it seems like he also had the faith and conviction on his star Hrithik, and his crowd-pulling abilities, something which the showbiz had witnessed back in 2019 when War had hit the silver screens.
After the trailer of Fighter was dropped, for a moment, the audience thought that Siddharth Anand had cracked the code for a superhit action entertainer laced with copious amounts of patriotism -- first with War and then with Pathaan. But looks like third time is not a charm for the director, and he still has to perfect the nitty-gritties of his favourite recipe.
Pathaan had opened with Rs 57 crore on January 25, 2023, and by its seventh day, it had minted a whopping Rs 314 crore.
On the contrary, despite the buzz, Fighter opened with Rs 22 crore on its first day. It earned the maximum on its second day, which was Republic Day, with Rs 39 crore, and from there, it began its downward trend.
It took four days for Fighter to breach the Rs 100 crore mark and after a week in theatres, it has managed to earn Rs 140 crore, which, in blunt terms, can be easily called disappointing, given the stellar star cast and the hype before the film's release.
This also cements yet another fact that Hrithik is no Shah Rukh Khan, because despite similar themes between Pathaan and Fighter, SRK effortlessly pulled millions of people to the theatres, which Hrithik clearly failed to, despite his 'Greek God' status and an undeniable social media presence.
Along with Hrithik, Deepika Padukone's very own fandom and the Pakistan-bashing in Fighter might have given the makers the confidence to release the big budget 'patriotic-entertainer' just a day before Republic Day, disregarding the well-known and followed Bollywood superstition that no major films are released in January as the month is considered to be "jinxed". And, Fighter's performance at the box office might have just reestablished the faith of the those who believed in the superstition.
Netizens too were of the opinion that Fighter was Siddharth's most unimpressive work in the recent times, and it was even more underwhelming because of the expectations that he had seeded with War and Pathaan. The music of Fighter also did not quite hit the mark.
The sublime impact of the film at the box office thus proves that patriotism and an anti-Pakistan narrative are clearly not always enough to deliver a blockbuster in this new era of cinema.
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