New Delhi: Superstar Akshay Kumar is currently going through a bad phase at the box office. Despite the success of his recent OTT release 'Cuttputlli', Akshay has had a series of failures at the box office this year starting with 'Bachchan Paandey', 'Raksha Bandhan' and 'Samrat Prithviraj'. However, this is not the first time that the actor is going through a rough patch. In the mid-90s, Akshay had gone through a slightly similar phase when his films were not doing that great at the box-office.
Recently, in an interview with RJ Siddharth Kannan, producer Suneel Darshan recalled how that bad time in Akshay's life seriously affected his morale. Akshay had 'wooed' him during that phase of his life and had won him over. Suneel recalled during the interview that a producer then had rejected the idea of putting billboards of Akshay's film 'Jaanwar' which was about to release, thinking he was a liability.
“Just two months before 'Jaanwar' was going to be released, Akshay walked in and he said, ‘Suneel ji, I’m going through so many problems. The producer of the movie which released on Friday hasn’t put up posters of the movie, and there’s not even a single hoarding’.” When Suneel asked Akshay what the producer told him, Akshay shared what the producer told him. “Tumhari aukaat nahi hai ke tumhari film ke hoarding aur poster lag sake (You’re not at the status where your films can have posters and hoardings).”
Suneel said that he felt 'so bad' for Akshay that he decided to invest in a large billboard for his film 'Janwaar'. "I put up a huge hoarding of 'Jaanwar'... and told... do one thing, don’t put the two heroines, only Akshay Kumar. So, what people would view as a liability to a project, I was seriously treating him as an asset.”
'Jaanwar' happened to be a big box office success. In fact, Suneel shared that despite the metro-belt in Mumbai, 'Jaanwar' did exceptionally well in the North especially UP, Rajasthan, Assam, Orissa, Bengal etc.
Akshay Kumar has been in the industry for over three decades now. His success graph has gone up and down over the years but the 2000s and the decade after has been exceptionally successful for him.