'Selfiee' struggling at BO on Day 5. Collection reports suggest it's time to end Bollywood remakes

Looks like Shah Rukh Khan's ‘Pathaan’ was just a one-off show in Bollywood. Even when ‘Pathaan' collected over Rs 1,000 crores at the box office, the rest of Bollywood seems to be putting up a dismal show. Two Bollywood films, which released this month – Akshay Kumar’s 'Selfiee' and Karthik Aryan’s 'Shehzada', are examples of films, that have not made much impact in the box office.

'Selfiee' which got released on February 24 has so far grossed only Rs 9 crores worldwide (the total budget is Rs 80-120 crores), while 'Shehzada' which hit theatres on February 17 only collected Rs 39 crore till date, though it was made on a budget of Rs 85 crores.

While 'Selfiee' is the remake of Prithviraj Sukumaran’s 'Driving Licence ', Allu Arjun’s blockbuster 'Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo' has been remade as 'Shehzada'.

Bollywood critics lament the absence of original content for these box office failures. Most Hindi films are either remakes of superhit Tamil and Telugu films. Since many of these films have already released on OTT platforms, the Hindi-speaking audience would have already watched them with subtitles, a reason why such remakes are bombing at the box office.

In 2022 alone, at least 13 Bollywood films were remade from other languages. Only one or two of them have become hits. Here's the list.

1) 'Vikram Vedha': Remake of the Tamil film 'Vikram Vedha', Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan played Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathy’s roles respectively. The film was made on a budget of Rs 100 crores and made only 136 crores.

2) 'Mili': Remake of the Malayalam film 'Helen'. Jhanvi Kapoor reprised Anna Ben’s role. Boney Kapoor who is known for his penchant for remakes produced the film.

3) 'Good Luck Jerry': Remake of Nelson’s Tamil film 'Kolamavu Kokila'. Jhanvi Kapoor reprised Nayanthara’s role.

4)'Bachchan Pandey': Remake of Karthik Subbaraj’s 'Jigarthanda'. The film headlining Akshay Kumar (Bobby Simha aced the character in the original) was a box-office disaster.

5) 'Jersey': Remake of the Telugu film 'Jersey'. The role of Nani (who was widely appreciated for his performance) was reprised by Shahid Kapoor. It turned out to be a box-office disaster despite Kapoor's fantastic performance.

6) 'Hit The First Case': Remake of a Telugu film carrying the same name. Rajkummar Rao played the hero. The film was made on a budget of Rs 30 crores and made only Rs 11 crores.

7) 'Drishyam 2': The only big success among the remakes. Ajay Devgn played the hero while Akshay Khanna reprised Murali Gopy’s role in the original. Tabu and Rajath Sharma are the other key actors in the film.

8) 'Lal Singh Chaddha': Remake of Hollywood film 'Forest Gump'. This Aamir Khan starrer was a big flop at the box office.

9)'Loop Lapetta': Remake of the German film 'Run Lola Run'. Tapasee Pannu played the heroine.

10)'Operation Romeo': Remake of Shane Nigam’s film 'Ishq'. Siddhant Gupta played the hero.

11)'Forensic': Remake of Tovino Thomas's film 'Forensic'. Vikrant Massey played the hero.

12) 'Cuttputlli': Remake of Tamil film 'Ratsasan'. This Akshay Kumar film was released directly on Hot star.

13)'Tadka': Remake of Aashiq Abu’s 'Salt N Pepper'. Nana Patekar and Tapasee Pannu played key roles.

This year too, Bollywood expects to release a slew of remakes. There are reports that 'Kaithi', 'Soorarai Pottru', and 'Anniyan' are in the process of getting remade.