RUSTOM- All Reviews and BO updates. - Page 17

Akshay Kumar's Rustom continued its incredible run at the domestic box office, as the film completed its extended 4-day weekend with collections of nearly 70 crore net.

The kind of opening the film took and the level of business through the weekend, inspite of a big film like Mohenjo Daro' releasing on the same day, makes it the best performing Akshay Kumar film after Rowdy Rathore.

Where the film goes from here depends on how well it holds today. Even surpassing the lifetime total of Airlift and Rowdy Rathore (Akshay's highest grosser) are well within the reach of Rustom, more so since it has a open second week. A Flying Jatt' is the next big release on August 25, but the target audience of that film is different from Rustom.

The film needed about 75 crore to break even at the domestic box office, so 90% of the total investment has already been recovered in the first 4 days. Rustom will be profitable for the distributors today onwards and should emerge a super-hit by the end of its run.

Akshay Kumar's Rustom is not just performing very well at the domestic box office, but the film has completely decimated and annihilated the other release last week - which was one of the year's most anticipated films starring Hrithik Roshan in the lead.

Now, there are clashes that are won by a small margin and there others that are won by a big margin. Mohenjo Daro's director Ashutosh Gowarikar himself was at the receiving end when a film like Gadar: Ek Prem Katha' went on to be the biggest grosser of all time, more than doubling the business of a classic like Lagaan'.

But the scenario back then was completely different. Gadar was a massy action film with chartbuster music. Lagaan did well at the box office too, but the appreciation that the film received was unprecedented. It went on to be only the third film in the history of Indian Cinema to get a Oscar nomination. While Gadar was the box office winner, Lagaan was the better film.

There was another big clash that took place in 2006, when the combined star power of Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan in Jaan-e-mann' wasn't enough to beat Shah Rukh Khan's Don: The Chase Begins', which collected nearly two times more than the Shirish Kunder directed romantic film.

However, the Mohenjo Daro vs Rustom clash particularly stands out as Mohenjo Daro was the bigger film and also appealed to a wider section of the audience. Yet, Rustom could eventually collect nearly 2.5 - 3 times more than Mohenjo Daro.

Even before the release, it was a forgone conclusion that Mohenjo Daro would lose the clash, but the biggest shocker has been in the way in which it has lost. Even much smaller films like Ki and Ka, Baaghi and Udta Punjab have comfortably gone past the 50 crore mark.

In an industry that survives and benefits from perception, Rustom could be a game-changer for Akshay Kumar. It'll change the way the trade looks at his upcoming films like Jolly LLB 2' and Crack'. If those films open like Rustom has, he'll take more credit than he otherwise would for the massive opening of Robot 2.0'.

2016 has been an extraordinary year for the superstar and 2017 could be better. If he does step it up, the purple patch that he has now hit could well be bigger than what was previously though to be his career-high in the mid 2000s.