Who do you think was more of a crowd puller in Sholay? - Page 4

Originally posted by: atominis

Really?

Dharam was established before but to say Amitabh was lagging in BO is all hokum. Dharam was just called Garam Dharam. No titles like Shehanshah or Big B or Superstar for him.

Amitabh was called one man industry by both Indian and western media.

He was first actor to get more than 1 crore as remuneration and first to get territorial rights of a film as part of remuneration. How did this happen if he wasn't a BO force? He was a powerful star which is why he got this.

He was featured 3-4 times by BBC. And when he featured for first time he was introduced as Asia's biggest star unlike Rajesh Khanna who had one docu on him calling him Bombay superstar. And Dharam was never featured anywhere except for handsomeness.

Dharam isn't embarrassing himself? You think Tinku jiya with a girl old enough to be his granddaughter was okay? He did kissing scenes with Nafisa in that Metro film. He has not done any significant work later.

Whereas this TM in this and other thread has been bashing Amitabh Bachchan and claiming he was inferior in BO or star power and in this thread he brought in failures of Aarakshan, Satyagraha etc to label him flop.

Amitabh is easily being called a media made star even though he had banned media throughout his prime and media too never featured him.

Dharmendra was more established than Amitabh and was senior. Who denies that? But film is memorable for all characters and especially Gabbar, Thakur and then Jai Veeru Basanti.

Acting wise greatest challenge was for Amjad and Sanjeev because their roles were not suited to their personality. The way they worked on their look, voice, expressions to fit in these roles is applause worthy.

I read that Amjad's casting was laughed at when this film was in making. Amazing how he nailed it.

What came instead was a human tidal wave. The advance booking for Amitabh Bachchan's controversial come-back film shattered all records and in some cases, the windows of booking counters. In Shiela cinema, in the heart of Delhi, a crowd of 20,000 people began collecting from 9 a.m. onwards for the first show. "It was larger than anything anyone can remember. Twenty, thirty times larger," said the owner, Ajay Kaushish.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/amitabh-bachchan-makes-spectacular-come-back-with-shahenshah/1/329047.html

Then the reports started coming in. The claps whenever Amitabh appeared on the screen, tickets spiralling to Rs.100 and more in the black market, a poor man who said: "Take my rickshaw but let me see the film." "Normally on the first day, the audience is very unruly, they come out on every song," said a theatre owner. "In this case, nobody moved out at all."

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/amitabh-bachchan-makes-spectacular-come-back-with-shahenshah/1/329047.html

Even the video cassette asserted its might, commanding a five-day advance booking. A one minute spot on the video is reported to have cost advertisers several lakhs. In Varanasi, a theatre had an extra show at 7 a.m. on a Sunday: it was house full immediately. "Anyone or anything even vaguely related to Shahenshah is making gold," wrote Dalip Shandil in Evening News. Or as a Bombay film spokesman crudely put it: "Ladka hua hai (It's a boy)."

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/amitabh-bachchan-makes-spectacular-come-back-with-shahenshah/1/329047.html

The Amitabh release after a year and a half proves just how far he is above everyone else in the industry.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/amitabh-bachchan-makes-spectacular-come-back-with-shahenshah/1/329047.html

Amitabh is still the phenomenon he always was. The people love him. He is one of them, a man who has risen from the masses, becomes a millionaire, gets a beautiful woman's love - and never forgets where he came from. "What else do they want?" asks Raj Chopra, a major Bachchan film distributor. "He takes them from the earth to the skies."

"He has proved that he is still the number one draw despite what the Opposition might say," said Sidheshwar Dayal, a film exhibitor

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/amitabh-bachchan-makes-spectacular-come-back-with-shahenshah/1/329047.html

.

This one man has also changed the fortunes of several people. Director Anand was almost bankrupt a few months ago, reduced to making advertising films. Even film exhibitors have been through a lean period. After several months, audiences are returning to cinema halls. "This film can rejuvenate the industry," said Dayal. "Ultimately, it will help other films."

Directors like Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra can breathe again: all their films with Amitabh were hits, all without him flops. The lesser heroes, however, have suffered. With one eye on Amitabh's return, Jackie Shroff, Dharmendra and Mithun Chakraborty are signing any film that comes their way.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/amitabh-bachchan-makes-spectacular-come-back-with-shahenshah/1/329047.html

The Arrival of Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan's "superstar" status has been documented considerably, both by journalists and by academics.⁴ Imagined as the "angry man" in the 1970s by the writer duo Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, Bachchan found himself catapulted into a strikingly new cinematic imagination of political and social turbulence. Writing about the actor in 1996, journalist Avijit Ghosh sums up the moment well: "The hollowness of official slogans like Garibi Hatao ["Eradicate Poverty"] reflected itself everyday in rising prices, growing unemployment and rampant corruption. Cynicism bred easy, accentuated further by the State's insensate treatment... of the JP student movement. But there was also a sense of helplessness that spawned a bitter and impotent rage. It simmered until Amitabh Bachchan showed how the underdog and the underprivileged could strike back. When his clinched fist and baritone boom burst with primeval intensity, in darkened cinema halls smelling of sweat and urine, a nation's eager fantasy came to fruition."⁵ Bachchan's image as the "angry man" circulated widely and gained the currency of a modern myth. Never before had an actor had this kind of presence, embodying the social and political turbulence of his time. This iconic presence of a single actor also signified major transformations that were taking place in the film industry from the 1970s onwards, an issue that is not always highlighted in existing accounts of Amitabh Bachchan.

The most prevalent industry discourse positioned the star as a "complete actor." ⁶ This term essentially referred to Bachchan's ability to handle comedy, action, dance, drama and romance. The process that went into the making of the "one man performer" who could do it all himself slowly ushered in a marginalization of comedians and several other peripheral characters who had traditionally provided interruptive relief, on the margins of the main story. Amitabh Bachchan as we all know was a versatile actor who could move easily between brooding anger, comedy, romance and most of all action. Bachchan's stardom coincided with a particular kind of professionalization of action in the industry with stunt directors creating their own space. Bachchan himself became well known for doing his own stunts, something that was taken note of and appreciated by many action directors. M.B Shetty who had simultaneously emerged as the industry's most highly rated stunt director said in an interview, "Show me one actor anywhere in the world who can do the kind of stunts Amitabh does without a double and I'll give you my right arm."⁷ Bachchan's achievement with stunts was widely reported in the popular press and contributed profoundly to the consolidation of his masculinity.⁸ Bachchan's limited but well known dancing steps became a familiar presence in several of his films, emerging as the quintessential Bachchan style. Most of all the female lead became marginal as Bachchan reached the position of the highest paid actor in the film industry. The idea of the "complete actor" therefore indicated an overwhelming consolidation of industrial practices around one figure. It is not surprising that the label of "one man industry" was used to identify Bachchan's presence and power.⁹ Films sold because of his name and presence in the film. The actor was known to move at times between the shooting of three different films, all during the course of a single day. This mythology of stardom can be accessed in the Bachchan posters and reveal carefully worked out iconographic techniques. This was also a marketing strategy in which the industrial landscape, the turbulent political milieu of the period, Bachchan's new style of acting, and stardom, came together.

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Originally posted by: -Ranjha-

Salman's Debut MPK was 80's Biggest Grosser, while Big B was still ruling from 70-80. Audience was way bored of Big B's films, then only KHANS made their mark in Industry.

Big B is still bigger than Khans, but if u gonna put him above Dharmendra, then sorry to say with Debut films hi Khans ne Shehanshah of bollywood ko nichey bitha diya, Now media call Srk King Khan of Bollywood.

Originally posted by: atominis

@BOLD

Billa ji

Amitabh had taken break from acting after his accident itself. He cut down work to focus on politics and business and by the time Khans came, Amitabh himself had bowed out.

Unke aane se pehle hi baith raha tha woh haalat ke kaaran.

Originally posted by: Bossman

@atominis I don't think you're quite understanding me. These articles, this phenomenon means zilch to me. Anybody can get that written for them. The only thing that matters is BOX OFFICE and Bachchan lags behind so many people in that regard that I can never call him the biggest star of all time that you seem hell bent on proving.

He doesn't have the 100+ hits that Dharmendra has, doesn't have the 15 straight hits of Rajesh Khanna or the 6 straight blockbusters of Salman. He doesn't have 12 straight silver jubilees of Rajendra Kumar or the 11 blockbusters of Dilip Kumar. All he has is articles and mandirs.

Bachchan is one of the pillars of Bollywood but so are these other guys. Just because he was hyped more means nothing to me. I won't put him on another stratosphere, he's right there with these other guys. Not above them.