Hollywood films giving Bollywood a run for its money?

June 6, 2016

Mumbai, Jun 6: As Bollywood touches its half-way mark in 2016, the industry looks back at a rather slow box office while Hollywood movies stand tall after causing quite a stir in the domestic market during last six months.

junglebookThe biggest example is "The Jungle Book", which created history of sorts at the Indian box office. The live action adaptation of the book of the same name, released on April 8, a week before its US premiere to avoid box office clash with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's "Fan".

As anticipated, "Fan" took a massive opening, the highest this year, at nearly 19 crore, clocking a whopping 52.35 crore in the weekend and opposed to this, "The Jungle Book" opened at 10 crores and registered a Rs 40 crore weekend.

The box office for both the films, however, completely changed later, with the 50-year-old "Dilwale" actor's film struggling to reach even 90 crores while the Disney project zoomed past the 100 crore mark.

By the end of its run, "Fan" made nearly 85 crores while "The Jungle Book" shattered all the previous records held by any Hollywood film released in India, earning approximately 183 crores.

This is the highest earning film of the year so far, beating Akshay Kumar's "Airlift" which is the biggest Bollywood hit of 2016 so far with 127 crore.

The margin between Bollywood's highest grosser of the year and "The Junglebook", that of nearly 60 crores, is alarming.

"The Jungle Book" is not the only Hollywood film which scored better at the domestic box office.

The comedy-superhero film "Deadpool", released alongside Katrina Kaif-starrer "Fitoor" on February 12, fared better. The Ryan Reynolds-starrer collected approximately 29 crores at the domestic box office while "Fitoor", helmed by "Kai Po Che" director Abhishek Kapoor, managed to collect a total of nearly 19 crore.

One of the most awaited superhero movies of the year, "Batman v Superman" opened to mixed reviews but managed to put up a total of Rs 36 crore in one week.

The Zack Snyder directed film clashed with John Abraham' "Rocky Handsome", and easily beat the latter.

Animated film "Kung Fu Panda 3" also clocked impressive collections despite facing competition from Kareena Kapoor Khan's "Ki & Ka".

The American-Chinese film raked in Rs 32 crore at the Indian box-office, which was just nearly 20 crore short of "Ki & Ka", which made Rs 51 crores.

A more prominent example of Hollywood films doing much better business than their Bollywood counterparts can be seen with the collections of "Captain America: Civil War".

The mega-budget superhero action movie clocked Rs 27 crore in the first weekend.

The film, which starred Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson, was dubbed in Hindi where actor Varun Dhawan voiced the character of Captain America.

The movie registered a total collection of approximately 59 crore, which is more than Priyanka Chopra's "Jai Gangaajal", Emraan Hashmi's "Azhar" and even Amitabh Bachchan starrer "Wazir".

Not only this, the recently released "X-Men: Apocalypse" clashed with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan-starrer "Sarbjit" and had a better opening week than the biopic.The superhero film clocked Rs 26 crore in its first week while the Omung Kumar-directed movie made nearly Rs 22 crore.

The Friday of May 27 saw the release of three Bollywood films, "Phobia", "Veerappan" and "Waiting" and one Hollywood project, "The Angry Birds Movie".

The animated action-adventure comedy earned Rs 9.4 crore in the opening weekend, more than the combined weekend collection of the three Bollywood films.

Interestingly, almost all the Hollwyood films which did better business than Bollywood movies were either successful franchsie movies or big-budget superhero projects.

Hollywood movies, which did not boast massive CGI action pieces, managed to do decent business at the domestic market like Alejandro G Inarritu's "The Revenant".

Despite the Academy Award, the Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer earned a modest Rs 3.5 crore in its opening weekend in India.

There are still many Hollywood big-wigs releasing this year including "Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist", "Suicide Squad", "Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them" among others.

It remains to be seen how much will these films affect upcoming Bollywood movies.

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News Network
March 10,2020

Washington, Mar 10: British adventurer Bear Grylls on Monday shared the power-packed trailer of `Into The Wild` episode featuring South Indian superstar Rajinikanth.

The video captures Rajinikanth driving through the forests of Bandipur in Karnataka, where the episode has been filmed. The 45-year-old adventurer shared the daredevil video on Twitter featuring Rajinikanth amid the woods and in the background, Grylls is heard saying "He`s faced a lot of fears, but he never gives up. He`s relentlessly positive."

He captioned the post on Twitter and wrote: "Superstar @Rajinikanth`s relentless positivity and never giving up spirit was so visible in the wild as he embraced every challenge thrown at him. Respect! Watch Into The Wild with @BearGryllson March 23 at 8:00 pm. @DiscoveryIN#ThalaivaOnDiscovery."

The video shows the Padma Bhushan actor and Grylls climbing hills and wading through gorges and ravine. The duo is seen driving through the Deccan forest. Amid the video, Grylls is seen addressing Rajinikanth as a "superhero." The actor is seen pulling off his signature `sunglass` move.

Earlier in February, the adventure show host shared an intriguing motion poster marking superstar Rajinikanth`s blockbuster TV debut in Discovery`s `Into the Wild`. Grylls also shared that it was a special experience for him to work with the Rajinikanth.

In January, Rajinikanth suffered minor injuries while shooting for the special episode of `Man vs Wild` Bandipur forest in Karnataka.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajinikanth becomes the second Indian personality to be featured on Grylls` survival show.

The episode with Prime Minister Modi was aired last year in August and became quite an attraction among viewers.

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News Network
July 14,2020

Los Angeles, Jul 14: US officials on Monday found the body of "Glee" actress Naya Rivera in the Californian lake where she drowned last week during a boat trip with her four-year-old son.

Rivera's body was retrieved and an initial examination found no evidence of foul play or suicide, Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub told a press conference.

"We are confident the body we found is that of Naya Rivera," said Ayub, pointing to the location, appearance, clothing and condition of the body.

Her body was being taken to a medical examiner's office for a full autopsy and confirmation of her identity from dental records, though no other missing persons have been reported at Lake Piru, he added.

Rivera, 33, is believed to have accidentally drowned after renting the boat with her young son at the camping and recreational hotspot around an hour's drive northwest of Los Angeles.

She vanished on Wednesday afternoon, and a massive search involving divers, patrol boats and helicopters was launched after her sleeping son was spotted drifting alone in a boat on the lake.

The son later told investigators that Rivera had helped him into the boat before "he looked back and saw her disappear under the surface of the water," said the sheriff.

Ayub pointed to the lake's strong currents as a possible cause of a fatal accident.

"The idea perhaps being that the boat started drifting -- it was unanchored -- and that she mustered enough energy to get her son back onto the boat, but not enough to save herself," he said.

The lake has been closed to the public since Wednesday, with around 100 personnel, including the US Coast Guard and rescuers from neighboring counties, joining the search.

Search teams used footage from video messaging calls Rivera made from the boat before her disappearance, as well as interviews with her son, to scour portions of the lake bed for her remains over six days, with no success.

"We believe she was concealed within some of the shrubbery on the floor bed of the lake" before eventually floating to the surface due to natural decomposition, said Ayyub.

With less than one foot (30 centimeters) of visibility underwater in daylight, the recovery operation was a "complex search effort" even with use of sonar equipment, he said.

Rivera was best known for her role as high school cheerleader Santana Lopez in "Glee."

She starred for six seasons in the wildly popular musical television series set in a US high school that ended in 2015.

The "Glee" cast has been struck by tragedy before.

Actor Mark Salling took his own life in 2018, weeks before being sentenced for possession of child pornography.

Canadian castmate Cory Monteith died in July 2013 of an overdose of drugs and alcohol.

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News Network
July 22,2020

Mumbai, Jul 22: Actor Sonu Sood on Wednesday launched an app to offer support to workers in finding right job opportunities in various sectors across the country.

Sood, who catapulted to the national spotlight for his work in helping migrants reach their homes amid the Covid-19 pandemic, has come out with a free of cost online platform called 'Pravasi Rojgar', which will provide all the necessary information and right linkages to find jobs.

The 47-year-old actor said while arranging travel for the migrants, their conversations would often revolve around how they were looking for the right work opportunity amid the pandemic.

"Lot of thinking, planning and preparation have gone into designing this initiative over the last few months, in order to ensure that it is holistic and builds on the work already being done in the country.

"Extensive consultations have been held with top organisations that're involved at the grassroots level in skilling and placing the youth below the poverty line, NGOs, philanthropic organisations, government functionaries, strategy consultants, technology start ups and above all the returned migrants whom I have helped," Sood said in a statement.

The initiative will be supported by community outreach in the villages to find the right employment opportunities for migrant workers in different parts of the country.

According to the release, the online platform has over 500 reputed companies related to construction, apparel, healthcare, engineering, BPOs, security, automobile, e-commerce and logistics sectors, offering job opportunities.

'Pravasi Rojgar' will also be offering specific job training programmes like spoken English.

A 24x7 helpline have been set up in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad and Thiruvananthapuram. 

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