DISTANCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER, THEY SAY. For Bollywood's 'King' Khan, his hiatus from the big screen lasted over four long years. Too long, you'd think, for a man in his mid-50s who's invested in mining himself from a mirror paused in springtime. So when he did announce his return with a chiselled physique, man bun swagger, gruff voice, the works-profuse love from fans was not entirely unanticipated. What nobody expected, though, was that this hungry fanhood would end up unleashing a full-blown box-office tsunami.
Pathaan, coming after a sorry washout like Zero (2018) had lowered the standard of even a flop as defined in the Shah Rukh Khan dictionary, went on to become the highest-earning Hindi film of all time in India: a Rs 560 crore-plus colossus, to be precise. Worldwide, it netted over Rs 1,000 crore. In doing all this, Pathaan almost single-handedly pulled Bollywood and single-screen cinemas in the Hindi belt out of the long lull Covid-19 left behind while cementing Khan's credentials as arguably the biggest of contemporary Indian stars. But this was only the beginning. As he warned us in the film, Pathaan... "zinda hai". More was to come.
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