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ShahRukh Khan’s Special Appearances are injurious to your Box Office!

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With the release and subsequent overall dismissal of Always Kabhi Kabhi at the Box
Office, a movie produced by ShahRukh Khan‘ s banner Red Chilies, a thought occurred
to me as soon as I saw the tired looking superstar jiggying on the promotional
Item song “Antenna”, has a special appearance by ShahRukh Khan ever
helped a movies chances to success? Have a look at the list below and let us
know what you think?
Special Appearances:
These are the earlier appearances or cameo’s that Shahrukh used to do before he
became the star we all know and love. Some were favors to by-gone friends, some
were about experimenting with new genres or just about visibility during a lull
in release schedules. None of these movies were really successful with the
exception of Saathiya. Although Hey Ram was a critical success and King Uncle
is a guilty pressure of ours especially of Jackie Shroff’s moustache and
Shahrukh still had that jumping jack charm and the uncoiffed mullet from the
early days. Shahrukh started his inability to make a movie successful when
sporting a hairy upper lip with the Sri Devi vendetta movie Army and it also
proved that overselling Shahrukh’s special appearance as a major part of the
movie was always going to disappoint his now steadily growing legion of
die-hard fans.

The smaller the role, the bigger the face on the poster

Item Songs:
We did a whole podcast about Item songs with our good friends Paresh from the
Currysmugglers and FilmiGirl (which you can find by clicking here, it was a hilarious
episode) but the only song from the list below that got a mention was Ishq
Kamina from the Nana Patekar, Karisma Kapoor “women empowerment themed
Bollywood ishtyle” – Shakti the Power, and since it was Paresh’s pick we
were more enamored with Aishwarya’s ghatti charm then Shahrukh’s mesh vest.
Heyy Baby was probably the only movie that did manage to keep SK’s appearance
under wraps and was probably the most successful. We saw the movie in theatres
and do clearly remember when that purple sherwani came on screen and how hearts
were sent aflutter. This is probably the type of appearance audiences enjoy the
most but if the movie doesn’t hold up then a promotional numbers can only do so
much. ( Oh Kaal, was pretty good wasn’t it? but boy was Krazzy 4 terrrrrible)

I See You, a movie no one saw

Narrator/ Voice over:
A trend started by the emperor of Bollywood (Amitabh Bachchan) but tried by The
King after that with pretty horrible results. Usually a favor to movie
producers who are or were friends of SRK one time but as we know from his
appearance on Koffee with Karan, friendships wih Shahrukh never seem to last
too long. Probably only Kismat Konnection as a moderate hit at the time,
probably due to smart budgets and Shahid Kapoor’s new found pectorial glory,
and I have to be honest I did not remember SRK’s involvement until I looked it
up on IMDB as is the case with the rest of the list!
Playing Shahrukh:

Madhuri..so pretty... oh right, we were talking about SK weren't we?

We have entered the age of the meta narrative where movies realize they live in a
world where people watch movies and where stars exist in real life. Usually
targeted at smaller niche audiences or the so called- metro’s (although I have
no clue who Gaja Gamini was aimed at but I won’t make fun of it as the director
has just passed away and the timing isn’t right).
Billu might jump out on the list as he was playing Sahir Khan and not Shahrukh
As a final thought maybe a
piece of advice for the King of Bollywood from that “M*thaF*cka to the Max”
Carlito Brigante: A Favor will kill you faster than a Bullet!

Let us know in the comment section if you agree or disagree with our analysis in the comment section below!

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