8 films confirmed, ‘one-man industry’ Akshay Kumar set to revive Bollywood

Actor Akshay Kumar (Image: Twitter/@akshaykumar)

The daily coronavirus infections that galloped to record highs in May are on the wane. Restrictions are being rolled back. Barring a nasty surprise, in a couple of months conditions should look up, the way they were in early March when Bollywood releases started making their way into theatres, with Roohi even managing a decent box-office run.

Closed for almost a year, cinema halls need more than just a decent success. The business is looking forward to “biggies” doing the trick but it will have to be more than one, in fact, a string of them. This is where Akshay Kumar, often referred to as “one-man industry” in Bollywood, comes in.

The superstar has nine confirmed projects—eight films and one web series—in different stages of production. These are Sooryavanshi, Bell Bottom, Atrangi Re, Prithviraj, Bachchan Pandey, Rakshabandhan, Ram Setum, OMG - Oh My God 2 and the web series The End.

This is not all. There is talk in the trade circles that Akshay has already green-lighted at least a couple of more films and formal announcements would follow soon.

That’s remarkable because barring Ajay Devgn and John Abraham, who are the only ones with four-five films in the pipeline, none of the other superstars have more than a couple of films.

The manner in which Akshay Kumar is speeding things up, rest assured that by the time Sooryavanshi releases, the 53-year-old actor would have a lined up 10 more films.

What makes this special is that these are not the films that were planned four or five years down the line. If theatres return to capacity by Independence Day, Akshay Kumar could well line up all his signed projects before the close of 2022. It won't be a surprise if he packs in a film or two more as well in the interim.

There is of course the art of time management behind this. Known to wrap his films inside three months on an average, Akshay Kumar has shown that he has it in him to release four movies in a year.

The year 2019 was the best of his professional career when he delivered three Rs 200-crore club superhits—Mission Mangal, Housefull 4, Good Newwz—and had a Kesari starting it all when it crossed Rs 150 crore with ease. Even 2020 would have had three to four more releases if not for the pandemic.

The year of Akshay Kumar?

While Sooryavanshi has been completed at that time, Prithviraj was also gearing up for the final schedule. Even as Kumar waited for that to resume in Mumbai, he went ahead and completed Bell Bottom in Scotland and that too when the first wave was hitting everyone hard globally. He returned and finished Atrangi Re in record time too. Ditto for Bachchan Pandey, which is in post-production now. Had it not been for the second coronavirus wave, the actor would have wrapped up substantial portions of Ram Setu.

Nonetheless, Akshay Kumar is back in the action now after recovering fully from COVID and has already shot for the small portions of Prithviraj that were remaining.

Rakshabandhan, too, is being shot and soon enough, it will be time for him to begin OMG-Oh My God 2. As for The End, it requires an elaborate schedule considering its action theme and the spread-out shoot due to the web series format. One will have to wait for it to go on floors. In the middle of all this, a film or two are bound to come in to keep him busy.

While he does come up with a certain minimum guarantee at the box office, there is a lot of varying content he is offering. At the core of it all, his films are aimed at a family audience, a big reason his films do so well on the satellite as OTT, which is also the reason that Laxmii clocked record numbers on both the mediums. No wonder, the industry has pinned its hopes on Akshay Kumar to revive its fortunes.

Get ready for the Akshay Kumar Film Festival that should light up the box office and set the cash register ringing.

Upcoming Akshay Kumar films:

Sooryavanshi

Bell Bottom

Atrangi Re

Prithviraj

Bachchan Pandey

Rakshabandhan

Ram Setu

OMG-Oh My God 2

The End (web series)