10 years, 37 films: Akshay Kumar’s ridiculously high success rate in graphs

Is Akshay Kumar the biggest money spinner in Bollywood right now? We tried to trace his commercial success in last ten years. Take a look at our graphs.

With Toilet Ek Prem Katha, Akshay Kumar is once again expected to give box office a much-needed breather after a disappointing phase. His film is expected to open to packed houses and sashay into the Rs 100-crore club in some time.

Akshay Kumar is one of the most bankable actor in Bollywood right now.

Definitely underrated, especially in terms of box office numbers, Akshay Kumar has managed to stand upto the Khans’ commercial draw in the past and continues to do so. He has been a constant on the Forbes’ highest paid actors’ list in the world and that is no fluke.

It was probably around 2007 when Akshay Kumar started breaking into the big league of Bollywood stars. At that time, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn and Hrithik Roshan were jostling to get past each other in order to challenge the Khan trio. He started getting closer to the numero uno spot and after 10 fruitful years – starting 2007 -- he is at a stage where he can rise past the competition.

So, when we decided to analyse his career, we took 2007 as the base year as that was the beginning of the brand Akshay Kumar. Also, it gave us a bandwidth of 10 years that eventually made us see certain patterns easily. We haven’t included the films in which he did a cameo or a voiceover. He wasn’t directly responsible for their performances.

He has done 37 films, out of which 16 are multi-starrers, in the given period. Here’s a graph that will tell you exactly how much his films have earned in these years. With 2012 being the game-changing year for Akshay Kumar, he went from strength to strength after this.

Source: Box Office India

But what about the multi-starrers? He was the most popular face of all the ensemble films he has done. From John Abraham and Sanjay Dutt to Riteish Deshmukh and Anil Kapoor, he worked with some talented actors, but the onus was mostly on him to achieve commercial success.

Source: Box Office India

Out of 16 multi-starrers, six are hits and three are moderately successful, so that takes his success percentage to 56.25%. Here’s a graph that will explain it for you.

Source: Box Office India

His overall success percentage is better than multi-starrers. Out of 37 films, 23 of his solo films have either managed to break even or have made profits. That shows why he is one of the most bankable actors to play the solo lead.

Source: Box Office India

Akshay Kumar has moulded himself as a comic actor who is also good at drama and action. It’s a great transition from just being an action star in the ‘90s. Forty-six per cent of his films fall in comedy or romantic comedy genre, while 30% come under drama category. Rest 24% are actioners or thrillers.

Source: Box Office India

But what happens when his films release with other big stars or well publicised films? He lost the battle in 2009 and 2010, but since then he hasn’t lost a single box office fight. Now, even the biggest of Bollywood stars would think twice before choosing the same release date for their films.

Illustration: Hitesh Mathur

In all probability, Toilet Ek Prem Katha is going to make his career graph look better.

Interact with Rohit Vats at Twitter/@nawabjha