Raj Kapoor’s Awara Earned $35 Million At The Worldwide Box Office In 1968 Being Highest Grossing Non-English Film Since 1940, Shekhar Kapur Shares A Trivia To Be Proud Of!
Awara was the highest Non-English grosser and Mughal - E - Azam second highest grosser. Read Shekhar Kapur's tweet.
Shekhar Kapur Reveals A Rare Box Office Fact About Awara Being The Highest Non-English Grosser Worldwide (Picture Credit: Awara Still & Wikimedia)
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Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur is someone who is known for blurting out things and sometimes, some of those statements are rarest of the rare facts. This time he has shared a goldmine of a box office update in a Twitter post and cinema lovers are surprised to know and read about the figures, the Mr India director shared. He even questioned the current process of film-making and while some users agreed with him, others questioned his facts.
Shekhar Kapur discussed the age era of filmmaking in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. The era of Raj Kapoor and Nargis, the era of Madhubala and Dilip Kumar, and the era of their supreme reigns, that were undoubtedly and undisputedly strong enough to hold the fort worldwide at the Box Office. Talking about the worldwide grossers of those eras the Bandit Queen director shared a rare fact.
Taking to his Twitter account, Shekhar Kapur wrote, “Did you know that all the highest-grossing non-English language films Worldwide between 1940 and 1968 were ALL Indian Films? The highest amongst that was Raj Kapoor’s #Awara with a worldwide gross of almost US$ 35 million in 1968.” The director concluded his tweet with an alarming question, “What happened to us after that?”
Shekhar’s tweet got an overwhelming response on Twitter. While some cherished the fact, others questioned the authenticity of the tweet. While some were just curious about the source of the fact. A user commented, “We started making films only specifically for our people (still doing that). To which Shekhar replied, “So was Awara.”
Another comment stated why Bollywood isn’t on the list of highest-grosser anymore. The comment read, “Become anti-Hindu #urduwood.” Kapur was quick enough to set the record state as he commented on another fact, “Mughal e Azam was second highest. One more Twitterrati tried to reason, “Bad scripts, storyline, originality and last but not the least nepotism.”
One more user presented a sensible argument saying, “We forgot our own civilisational strength – storytelling.” Another user echoed the same thought and commented, “The Indian film industry lost their “dare” to tell new stories, new plots, raise real social issues. Almost all movies became a money-making mix of boy meets girl, with a lot of musicals. Movies that made money but did not bring anything new.”
However, there were some who questioned the authenticity of these facts. One user wrote, “Lmao …you really need to stop spreading fake news ….the highest grossing movie of 1968 was funny girl Columbia Pictures and it grossed $24,900,000 so how can Awara gross that unfathomable amount.”
One more user tried to find a ray of hope in Shekhar Kapur and tweeted, “Finish Paani and recreate history!” For the unversed, Shekhar Kapur was supposed to make a science fiction film titled Paani which was backed by Aditya Chopra and had Sushant Singh Rajput as the main lead. But the budget of the film was so inflated that Yash Raj Films wanted a bigger star to pull such a film.
Later with Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, Paani was shelved. It was also reported that a reboot of Mr. India was in the making but the director shelved the idea after his close friends Sridevi and Satish Kaushik passed away. Kapur is currently working on an Indianised version of Harry Potter.
