Akshay Kumar's Box Office Comeback: Can comedy movies save the tragedy of his back-to-back flops? Trade experts weigh in [Exclusive]

Akshay Kumar has starred in several movies released on streaming platforms and in theatres since 2020. Sooryavanshi (2021) was his first theatrical release after the lockdown, which did good business. However, most of his subsequent films, such as Bachchhan Paandey, Samrat Prithviraj, Ram Setu, Selfiee, Mission Raniganj, and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, have not performed well at the box office. Akshay's recent release, Sarfira, which has received positive reviews, is also struggling to earn good numbers.

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In the past few years, Akshay Kumar has worked in various genres of movies. However, in 2025, he will be back in his element, giving the audience comedy movies. Akshay will star in Welcome to the Jungle, Housefull 5, and Hera Pheri 3, all of which are his popular comedy franchises. But will these movies help him get back in the game and give him a much-needed hit? BollywoodLife spoke with a few trade experts and analysts about this matter. All of them are positive that Akshay will definitely deliver hits with his comedy movies.

Box office and trade expert Girish Johar said, "Yeah, definitely. I would say that all three franchises Welcome to the Jungle, Housefull 5, and Hera Pheri 3 are significant projects for Akshay Kumar. He has been the backbone of all these films previously, and comedy has been his forte also. These are commercial and big entertainers; they have big money and big scale, and expectations are also quite humongous from all these movies."

When asked about Khel Khel Mein, which is releasing on August 15th, Girish said, "Honestly, the trailer is yet to come out. We've just gotten the first-look poster. It looks good and something intelligent. I believe the story takes place over the course of one night. Though, we are not too sure about the confusion that happens in one night, I'm not too sure. But yes, having said that, it is a complex state at the box office presently, and we have three big films coming up on independence day. It will be a tough fight between all three, with Stree 2 having larger audiences because it's a different film. It's a horror genre, a comedy genre, and, again, a successful one. Whereas Khel Khel Mein and Vedaa are standalone films."

Trade expert Rohit Jaiswal also believes that Hera Pheri 3, Housefull 5, and Welcome to the Jungle will do wonders at the box office for Akshay Kumar. "There's no denying the fact that Akshay Kumar's last several films have flopped, except for Sooryavanshi. But one must see that, despite these films flopping, their content wasn't entirely bad. Only one or two films had poor content, were remakes, or were simply not liked by the audience. Otherwise, you can look at any of his films, like Mission Raniganj or Sarfira; they were good films. The thing is, Akshay Kumar's content isn't working anymore. It could be that people are tired of his content. Perhaps people want to see him in proper comedies, like Sajid Khan used to make. His Housefull 5 and Hera Pheri are coming up."

Rohit added, "So yes, people don't want to see him in the normal roles he's been doing lately. Whether directly or indirectly, they also don't want to see him in patriotic roles. Now people are yearning for a good comedy film from him. As soon as a successful comedy film of his comes out, I'm 100 percent sure it will have a bumper opening. Akshay has a huge fan club that has been completely dry for many years, which is his comedy fan club. Therefore, I am confident that the release of his comedy film will positively impact both his business and personal life, potentially bringing Akshay Kumar back into the spotlight.

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Trade analyst Akkshay Rathie is confident that Akshay Kumar will return with a bang and deliver a box office hit with these big comedy franchises. Akkshay told BollywoodLife, "Absolutely. See, for all of these guys Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, and Hrithik Roshan their stardom is not an overnight sensation like that of an influencer. These are people who have built their stardom over decades. They have a loyal fan following who absolutely loves them for the actors they are. What has been going wrong is the kind of movies that he has been doing, where he seems to be getting very repetitive in terms of the storytelling, and to a large extent, it's also the case of the non-theatrical worthiness of some of them. But it will only take a couple of movies that are absolutely theatre smashers to return him to the place he belongs, which is stardom. I think, it's only a matter of a couple of films firing well, and these comedies that you are talking about, the next Housefull and Hera Pheri, have all the potential to be able to do that. I am very confident that it will happen."