Akshay completes flop hat-trick

Is Akshay Kumar losing his Midas touch? With his latest release 8x10 Tasveer he has delivered a big turkey at the box office third time in a row. His Jumbo and Chandni Chowk To China had suffered a bad fate at the box office recently and the dismal opening and pathetic opening weekend collections suggest audience doesn"t seem to be very excited anymore with an Akshay Kumar film.

Akshay had genuinely tried to change tracks from nonsensical comedies to more meaningful roles in serious cinema and his first step towards it was his Nagesh Kukunoor film. Though Akshay has given it his all to the film, Nagesh has let him down in the writing and direction department. Even hardcore Akki fans have stayed away from this mind numbing flick.

The film has been beaten at the box office in Mumbai by a Marathi film Me Shivaji Raje Bhosale Boltoy starring Sachin Khedekar in the lead role. Even the Hollywood action thriller Fast and Furious 4 has taken a flying start at multiplexes.

Tasveer opened very poorly at single screens to 20-25% collections and in multiplexes at 40% on Friday. The weekend instead of seeing a rise saw a massive fall in collections. The Rs.40 crore budgeted film has grossed a mere Rs.5 crore from its first three days. Which means it is next to impossible for the film to recover anything beyond 10 crore in the long run.

Considering it was made at a budget of Rs.40 crore and Rs.6 crore more was added because of publicity, the makers will lose a good Rs. 35-36 crore at least. This is bad news for Akshay Kumar who was on his steady way to super stardom challenging the domination of the King Khan.

We just hope he strikes back with vengeance. After all he has got four biggies lined up for release in 2009 and luckily these films - Blue, Kambakkht Ishq, De Dhana Dhan and Housefull are all carrying sufficient hype along them.