Salman Khan to compensate distributors for Tubelight’s loss?
Distributors are planning to meet Salman Khan to request him to compensate for the losses which they occurred because of ‘Tubelight’s’ failure at the Box Office. Will the celebrity star relent?
Salman Khan-starrer ‘Tubelight’ met with a poor response at the Bollywood Box Office, and all predictions of Rs 300 crore seem to have gone down the drain. Even after 11 days since its release, ‘Tubelight’ has just about managed to collect Rs 111.50 crore at the Box Office. The audiences seem to have echoed the sentiments of the many negative reviews the film faced. The celebs and cinema stars like Salman Khan, Sohail Khan and director Kabir Khan too have been unable to be the face-saver for ‘Tubelight’, and the Bollywood film’s losses are mounting at the theatres. Will Salman Khan compensate distributors for ‘Tubelight’s’ loss?
As ‘Tubelight’ failed to charm the audiences, distributors are looking to recover the losses from Salman Khan. The distributors are planning to meet Salman and the team of ‘Tubelight’ in Mumbai soon! A distributor informs Mid-day, “Salman’s films can collect Rs 100 crore in just three days. But this time, ‘Tubelight’ reached the three-figure mark after a week. Single screen owners in small cities have suffered the most, with many incurring losses of over Rs 1 crore. The total loss amounts to Rs 40-50 crore. This is the first time that we have faced such a situation. The distributors are hopeful that Salman will pay off their damages.”
Salman Khan is not bound to refund any losses to the distributors. Purely on humanitarian grounds, the actor-producer may well decide to control the damage and compensate the losses incurred. Rumours are rife that Salman Khan and team have decided to refund a specific amount to the distributors of ‘Tubelight’. Film’s co-producer Amar Butala remained unavailable for comment.
In a similar incident in the past, Shah Rukh Khan coughed up some money to compensate the distributors for the failure of ‘Dilwale’, which released in 2015. The actor-cum-producer absorbed 50 percent of the losses that distributors suffered. Similarly, southern superstar Rajinikanth, when his 2002 film ‘Baba’ tanked at the Box Office, compensated the distributors, setting a good precedent for his future release. Rajinikanth, apparently, has a history of compensating distributors. ‘Kuselan’ (2008) and ‘Lingaa’ (2014) failed at the Box Office and the actor paid up for the damages.
To keep the distributors happy so that these celebs’ all future cinema reaches the maximum audiences vide their large theatre network, many Bollywood stars have adopted the practice of compensating for the losses. Salman Khan may begin his with ‘Tubelight’.
