Neil Nitin Mukesh Eyes Hat-Trick Of ‘Blockbuster Baddie’ Outing With Saaho After Prem Ratan Dhan Payo & Golmaal Again

As a villain, he already has two 200 Crore Club films to his name – Prem Ratan Dhan Payo and Golmaal Again. Now with the release of Saaho round the corner, Neil Nitin Mukesh could well be aiming to score a hat-trick of triple centuries with the Prabhas starrer.

Of course, it is an unwritten rule in the industry that the credit for 100 Crore, 200 Crore or 300 Crore Club successes goes to the hero of the film. However, as is the saying, a powerful villain is needed to get the best out of a hero. In that aspect, the original ‘Johnny Gaddaar‘ is ready to go ‘gaddaar’ all over again in Saaho which releases this Friday.

Though he has been around for a little over a decade with his Johnny Gaddaar releasing back in 2007, Neil Nitin Mukesh has been carefully selecting his films. In fact if one looks at his filmography of his last five years, he has been enjoying a tremendous success rate with each one of his films bringing him box office returns as well as accolades.

“Save for a couple of delayed releases of his that he had done many years back, it has been one superb run for Neil,” says an insider. “The turnaround started with South superstar Vijay starrer Kaththi [2014] where he played a hardcore villain. The film was a huge success. Immediately after that he was seen in Prem Ratan Dhan Payo and impressed yet again as the only villain in the film, which went on to record business of over 200 crores. Later, he was menacing in the title role of Wazir, which again turned successful on sheer word of mouth.”

This was followed by Indu Sarkar where he came up with a very good performance in the role of Sanjay Gandhi. Based during emergency, the Madhur Bhandarkar directed film didn’t cover much of a distance theatrically but has been a good success on the digital medium, and in the process finding quite some appreciation for Neil Nitin Mukesh. As for a bona fide commercial success, there was yet another 200 crores blockbuster in Golmaal Again that came soon after.

While as a ‘Blockbuster baddie’, Neil has already delivered quite well in Prem Ratan Dhan Payo as well as Golmaal Again, rest assured he could well be eyeing a hat-trick now with Saaho giving all the indications of yet another blockbuster in the offering.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

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