New actor-director combos that are set to rock Box office

Each time a successful actor has teamed up with a skilled filmmaker, the outcome has been a brilliant cinematic experience. And 2019 seems to have plenty of it with these fresh actor-director pairings that are sure to rock the box office. To begin with, filmmaker Rohit Shetty reportedly announced at an event that he’ll be working with Akshay Kumar in his next project and the news took the social media by fire. Another new pairs that have got movie buffs excited include Karan Johar and Vicky Kaushal foriTakht , Raj kumar Gupta and Arjun Kapoor for India’s Most Wanted, Ashutosh Gowarikar and Sanjay Dutt for Panipat and Sujoy Ghosh and Taapsee Pannu for Badla.

Trade analyst Atul Mohan says, “When these new directors and actors come together, there are a lot of expectations in terms of new ideas and presentation and that increases the excitement. Akshay has moved beyond his comfort zone, taking risks with new subjects. Rohit, is known for his films in the action and comedy genres. That means when they come together, it’s definitely going to give is something appealing.”

Actor Vicky Kaushal is excited to work with Karan Johar for the first time. (Instagram/vickykaushal09)

Among other new actor-director pairs that have a lot of hope riding include Marjaavaan (Milap Zaveri and Sidharth Malhotra), Gully Boy (Zoya Akhtar and Alia Bhatt) and Brahmastra (Ayan Mukherji Alia Bhatt and Amitabh Bachchan).

Much like their fans, actors, too, are excited to be collaborating with their dream directors. Vicky says, “I’ve been looking forward to collaborating with Karan for long, and now that I am, I don’t have words to express my happiness. He’s making a period film, so my excitement has just doubled. I’m working hard so that I don’t disappoint him.” Taapsee, too, is kicked about her next and says, “Sujoy’s style of working is different.”

Raj Kumar Gupta has finished shooting for his next film with Arjun Kapoor. (Twitter/@arjunk26)

While some directors are known to repeatedly work with the same set of actors, Raj Kumar Gupta says that he and Arjun had been thinking of doing a film together for quite some time. “After Raid released, Arjun called and we spoke at length again. I sent him the script of in India’s Most Wanted and he loved it and that’s how the ball started rolling,” he says.

However, the director is quick to add that he can’t predict the box office result. “That would be going too far, so I don’t think about such things in advance. We have just tried to make a good film and are hoping that it does good business,” says Rajkummar.

Director Sujoy Ghosh and Taapsee Pannu are currently shooting for their next film, Badla. (Instagram/Taapsee Pannu)

Putting this in perspective, film critic Omar Qureshi says that though these pairings look interesting, everything boils down to the script. “There are few story lines that get explored often, one needs to see how different can they make the cop story, love story... Vijay Krishna Acharya’s Thugs of Hindostan failed at the box office because people did not like the story. So, even if successful people are coming together if the story isn’t good even the powers of all the avengers coming together can’t help,” he explains.

Atul adds in agreement, “Looking at some films that worked October (Shoojit Sircar and Varun Dhawan), Pad Man (R Balki and Akshay), Raazi (Meghna Gulzar and Alia) and Sanju (Rajkumar Hirani and Ranbir Kapoor) did well because of both the pairing and the story. And some of these pairings are also because of the demand of the script.”

Author tweets @Shreya_MJ

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First Published: Dec 12, 2018 17:09 IST