Bholaa, Selfiee, Shehzada, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan & more: The curious case of remakes in 2023

In the past decade, Bollywood has faced criticism due to lack of original content and stories for the cinegoers. In fact, in 2022 we witnessed many remakes featuring biggies that turned out to be colossal disappointments at the ticket windows, which include, Laal Singh Chaddha (remake of Forrest Gump), Vikram Vedha (remake of a Tamil film of the same name), Jersey (remake of a Telugu film of the same name), Bachchhan Paandey (remake of Tamil film Jigarthanda), HIT: The First Case (remake of a Tamil of the same name) and many more. One big exception in this scenario was Ajay Devgn’s _Drishyam 2_, which turned out to be a box-office blockbuster. This year too, we saw a wave of remakes from Bollywood at the box office. It started with Kartik Aaryan’s _Shehzada_ (remake of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo) followed by Akshay Kumar-Emraan Hashmi’s Selfiee (remake of Driving Licence) and both were disappointing affairs at the box office. While Ajay Devgn’s Bholaa (remake of Kaithi) and Salman Khan’s _Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan_ (remake of Veeram) did average business, Aditya Roy Kapur’s _Gumraah_ (remake of Thadam) failed miserably at the box office. Now, coming Friday we have one more remake from Bollywood - Chatrapathi, which is the remake of a Telugu film of the same featuring Prabhas and Shriya Saran and was directed by SS Rajamouli. The adapted film features Telugu star Bellamkonda Sreenivas in his Bollywood debut.

While the original film has been watched several times on television and OTT in its Hindi dubbed version, it will be quite difficult for the makers to create excitement among the cinegoers and garner footfalls. Also, the popularity of Bellamkonda is not humongous in the northern part of the country, so a lot will be dependent on the merit of the content. Since it is a massy actioner, we can expect some kind of response from single screens but word-of-mouth publicity will play a crucial role for the film. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News,  India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.