The Shah Rukh Khan-starrer ‘‘Pathaan’’, which marked his major comeback to starring roles after over four years, has broken many records since its release on January 25. According to international media, it is on track to becoming the second highest-earning Hindi-language release in India, leaving behind Yash’s KGF: Chapter 2. On its second Monday, the film added a solid figure to its total collection.
‘‘Pathaan’’ is an action thriller film directed by Siddharth Anand and produced by Aditya Chopra of Yash Raj Films. The fourth installment in the YRF Spy Universe, it stars Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, and John Abraham, alongside Dimple Kapadia and Ashutosh Rana. Written by Shridhar Raghavan and Abbas Tyrewala from a story by Anand, the film is about ‘‘Pathaan’’, an exiled RAW agent, who must work with ISI agent Rubina to take down Jim, a former RAW agent-turned-traitor, who is planning to spread a deadly lab-generated virus across India.
Principal photography for the film began in November 2020 in Mumbai. The film was shot over various locations in India, Afghanistan, Spain, UAE, Turkey, Russia, Italy and France. Two songs were composed by the duo Vishal–Shekhar, while Sanchit Balhara and Ankit Balhara provided the score.
The music video of one song, “Besharam Rang”, featured Padukone in a saffron bikini, which led to protests by right-wing Hindutva groups and an attempt to boycott the film; however, the Central Board of Film Certification cleared the film for exhibition after certain edits were made to the song sequence. The film was made on an estimated production budget of INR 225 crore (US$28 million) with a further INR15 crore (US$1.9 million) spent on print and advertising. Against norm, pre-release publicity was limited with no media interactions or public events.
The film was released in India and many other countries in the continent simultaneously including Sri Lanka on 25 January 2023, coinciding with the Indian Republic Day weekend, in IMAX, 4DX and standard formats along with dubbed versions in Tamil and Telugu.
The success of ‘Pathaan’ is not just being celebrated by the film’s team but also by the Hindi film industry and Hindi film lovers across the continent. Actor Shahid Kapoor, who is looking forward to the release of his debut web series Farzi, told Connect FM Canada that ‘Pathaan’’s success has taught the film industry to be confident in one-self.
Asked what the film’s success means to the industry, he further said in the show, “Money, obviously! Hopefully, some confidence in one-self. I think everybody is losing confidence. But we shouldn’t. We should be confident. I think ‘Pathaan’ is a result of a lot of confidence, a lot of effort, of course, and a lot of hard work. The production team backed each other so much, and that’s what works,” he further added.