Bollywood’s First Blockbuster Kismet (1943) Earned A Profit Of Around 5000% (Picture Credit: IMDb)
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Bollywood films and their craze with numbers started when Aamir Khan’s Ghajini scored a perfect 100 at the Box Office thereby starting the 100 crore club. It was much appreciated and much publicised. But do you know the first Hindi film, which started these clubs at the box office? Not talking about the 100s but the singles? When the films first pushed themselves to earn an 8-digit number at the box office? Hindi Box Office and Bollywood, got its first film to enter the crore club with Kismet in 1943.
Helmed by Gyan Mukerji, Kismet starred Ashok Kumar in the lead role, and the film started many of the firsts in Bollywood. Be it the box office collection, the storyline or the casting, the film opened the doors to many of the firsts in Bollywood.
A report in MensXP said that it was the first film to have an anti-hero as the lead in Ashok Kumar who played a pick-pocketer. Anti-hero became a popular trend in the late 70s and early 80s with Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, and Sanjay Dutt rising to the throne. However, it was Kismet, which was the first film to do so.
Kismet was also the first film to earn 1 crore at the box office, bringing crore clubs to the table! Yes, you read that right; this is when the crores and the 8 digits entered the Hindi Box Office scenario. The film was reportedly the first blockbuster of the Hindi Film Industry owing to its phenomenal numbers.
According to Indicine, the film was made on a budget of 2 lakhs only and earned 1 crore. Can you guess the profit it made? A profit of around 5000 percent! 4900 to be exact and precise! Probably, a rarity in today’s day owing to the inflated budgets of the film!
The film also had a lost and found theme, which was later used brilliantly in Manmohan Desai’s films. The film, according to Sacnilk, collected around 2 crores gross in India. The website even mentions the opening of the film as 5 lakhs, which means that the film earned more than twice its budget on the opening day itself. However, the numbers stand unverified since little data is available to cross-check!
Kismet gave Ashok Kumar the title of the first star of Hindi Cinema. The film was an all-time blockbuster and still one of the biggest hits of Indian cinema owing to its 5000 percent profit.
Note: Box office numbers are based on estimates and various sources. Numbers have not been independently verified by Koimoi.
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