How Akshay Kumar is giving the Khans a tough fight at the box office

Akshay Kumar seems to be holding his own at the Box Office when it comes to competing with the Khans of Bollywood. The Khiladi delivered three hits last year and it seems there is no stopping him as he hit another home-run with his new release Toilet Ek Prem Katha.

Kumar’s attempt of making people aware of the problem of open defecation managed to catch many an eye and the film grossed Rs 118 crore at the box office, becoming the third highest grosser this year after Baahubali: The Conclusion.

While the two Khans of Bollywood, Salman and Shah Rukh, disappointed moviegoers with their new releases Tubelight and Jab Harry met Sejal, Akshay had audiences flocking to cinema halls for both Jolly LLB 2 and Toilet.

His other film in 2017, Naam Shabana, which was a prequel to spy-thriller film Baby, earned Rs 49.75 crore.

A small comparison of revenue earned by major releases by these stars reveals that in the first half of 2017, Akshay Kumar’s films have raked in  around Rs 317 crore, with Jolly LLB 2 grossing Rs 148 crore, Toilet earning around Rs 120 crore and Naam Shabana adding Rs 49 crore to the grand total.

This year, high expectations were riding on Salman Khan’s Tubelight but that went down the drain when the film struggled to hold the moviegoer’s interest for long despite the movie releasing during the Eid holiday.

The hit actor-director duo of Kabir Khan and Salman Khan could not recreate the Bajrangi Bhaijaan magic with Tubelight. The film ended up making just Rs 156 crore, which when compared to some of Salman's previous Eid releases, seems lacklustre.

Shah Rukh Khan’s Jab Harry met Sejal fared worse, barely managing to keep running in cinema halls and collecting just Rs 57.71 crore in India.

So going by the money earned by Akshay Kumar's films this year, he is giving a tough fight to the Khans at the box office. In fact, current numbers indicate that he is racing ahead.

The same trend was seen last year when films like Rustom, Airlift and Housefull 3 were three of the top 5 grossers of 2016, based on worldwide collections by movie website Box Office India. The films each earned Rs 173 crore, Rs 166 crore and Rs 150 crore, respectively, in India alone.

With a total of Rs 489 crore for the three movies, Akshay stood second after Aamir Khan, whose Dangal raked in Rs 495 crore at the domestic box office in 2016.

Just like Aamir, Salman Khan churned out just one movie last year, Sultan, that fared well with collections worth Rs 418 crore but fell short of few crores to score rank second on the list of highest grossing films. Shah Rukh wasn't even in the race, after two of his movies -- Fan and Dear Zindagi -- could gross only Rs 84 crore and Rs 91.82 crore, respectively.

At a time when many Bollywood stars believe in appearing once in a year on the big screen, Akshay Kumar is not shy of coming twice or thrice on the celluloid to entertain movie buffs. With film promotions and long shoot schedules, delivering more than one film in a year may look difficult but Kumar’s strict regime says “Everything is possible”.

The actor's day includes 8 hours of work and he even takes Sunday off to spend time with his family. It is his work-life balance that allows him to complete more than one film project a year.

A five-year trend shows that he has appeared in an average of 3 movies every year. So, with a few flops too, Kumar manages to redeem himself  with other movies.

In 2015, The Khiladi of Bollywood did four movies namely Baby (Rs 109 crore), Gabbar Is back (Rs 117.27 crore), Brothers (97.29 crore) and Singh is Blling (Rs 98.53 crore). Although Salman Khan raced ahead of Akshay Kumar with Bajrangi Bhaijaan (Rs 422 crore) and Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo (Rs 267.54 crore), the latter still managed to stay put at second place.

However in 2013 and 2014, things changed on the leaderboard and the Khans outranked Kumar. Here’s how----

However, many media outlets in February 2013 had reported that net box-office collection of Kumar's films had crossed Rs 20 billion (USD 310 million) and he was the first and the only Bollywood actor to do so.

But then again, Akshay Kumar was neck and neck in the collections race with Salman Khan in 2012. Former’s Rowdy Rathore (Rs 180 crore), Joker (Rs 27.53 crore), Oh My God (Rs 111.34 crore) and Khiladi 786 (Rs 87.68 crore), taking the total to Rs 406.55 crore. On the other hand, Salman Khan’s Dabangg 2 (Rs 202.65 crore) and Ek Tha Tiger (Rs 251.15 crore) got him a total of Rs 453.8 crore. That year Shah Rukh’s Jab Tak Hai Jaan earned only Rs 137.83 crore.

Kumar was ranked number 4 on Forbes' 2016 list of world’s highest paid actors. The actor will look to make his presence felt in upcoming projects like 2.0, where he will share space with actor Rajnikanth, and R Balki’s Padman.