Critical acclaim is just the bonus, what matters for a movie is how much crowd it manages to pull to theatres. For as much as art filmmaking is, it is commerce nonetheless, and at the end of the day, the box office figures do matter more than puffy reviews.
Going by the business, Year 2011 was a very good one for Bollywood, with more than ten blockbusters, four of which came back to back in the month of July.
The year clearly belonged to Salman Khan, who after the mega-hit Dabangg last year, proved that his clout at box office is undiminished.
Released in August, his film Bodyguard broke all the opening day box office records and made a whopping Rs. 20.62 crore, beating the record previously held by Dabangg. Not just this, Bodyguard also broke the record of the highest first-week collection with a gross of Rs. 100 crore. If anything was left, Bodyguard emerged as the highest grosser ever for the month of August with a nett business of Rs. 140 crore. It means that no other film released in August in Bollywood history made as much money as Bodyguard did. Not for nothing is Salman Khan called the darling of box office.
Interestingly, his other big hit of the year, Ready, holds the same record for the month of June. It grossed Rs. 121 crore.
Check out ahead the other big blockbusters of 2011.
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