By the end of 90s decade, audience wanted to see a new action hero.
They were tired of seeing the same old actors doing action.
That's why Akshay gave up on action, and started doing comedy.
Others who didn't change with time faded out as a solo lead actor like Sunny Deol, Suneil Shetty and Sanjay Dutt.
This was the perfect time for Hrithik to make his place as an action hero. He was a fresh face and people loved seeing him doing action.
But he wanted to experiment on his acting and movies. So he kept on doing movies with different genres, taking multiple breaks.
He could've made good use of his stardom after the success of Krrish and Dhoom 2, but instead he took a break of two years to do Jodhaa Akbar.
Hrithik giving up on his chance to become bigger than all three Khans in stardom, and this benefited Salman the most.
As when Salman did Wanted and Dabangg, masses got a new action hero after almost a decade and they didn't want him to let that image go.
So even though Salman was lazy in action, people loved him because there was no other option.
Now that they have a better option with Tiger, who does action better than almost everyone, Salman's stardom is slipping.
But Salman would never have got this chance if it wasn't for Hrithik being obsessed with acting.
Arjun
Anupamaa
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