Race 3 VS Thugs Of Hindostan: Which Of These Two Khan Films Is A Bigger Failure?

Eid 2018 saw the release of Salman Khan’s Race 3 whereas Diwali 2018 saw the release of Aamir Khan’s Thugs of Hindostan. While both the films under-performed at the Box-Office vis-à-vis expectations, without any second thoughts one can conclude that Thugs of Hindostan is a much bigger failure than the Salman Khan film. While Race 3 raked in approximately 170 crores at the domestic Box-Office, Thugs of Hindostan is looking to end its run at collections in the range of 145 to 147 crores.

An interesting point to note here is the fact that Thugs of Hindostan has been made on a humongous budget of 240 crores (excluding Aamir Khan fees) whereas Race 3 was made on an approximate budget of 150 crores (excluding Salman Khan fees). Despite having almost two times the budget, Thugs of Hindostan will collect much below Race 3, not just in India but also abroad. The budget part aside, another factor which makes Thugs of Hindostan a bigger failure is the additional padding.

While both Race 3 and Thugs of Hindostan starred two of India’s biggest superstars i.e. Salman Khan and Aamir Khan respectively, Thugs was definitely a better-packaged film. Race 3 had nothing going in its favour right from its announcement – be it the production house (TIPS Entertainment), the supporting cast (Bobby Deol, Daisy Shah, Shaqib Salim to name a few), the music (multiple composers, who are not known in the industry) whereas Thugs of Hindostan, on the other hand, had everything going in its favour since its announcement – be it the production house (YRF), the supporting cast (Amitabh Bachchan, Katrina Kaif, Fatima Sana Shaikh), the music (Ajay-Atul). Basically, Thugs of Hindostan was a lot bigger film than Race 3 on all grounds and it will end up earning lesser than Race 3 across the globe in the first phase of its release.

Salman’s unbelievable audience pull in the masses helped Race 3 reach a respectable total. Thugs of Hindostan suffered big time because Aamir’s main audience resides in the metros, who decided to skip the film after poor reviews. Retrospectively, Race 3’s audience was unaffected by negative reviews to a certain extent as all they cared about is Salman’s screen presence. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the only thing working in favour of Race 3 was Salman Khan’s star-power and a minor recall value of the Race Franchise. Thugs of Hindostan, on the other hand, had a lot of padding apart from Aamir Khan’s star-power. Taking into account all factors, Thugs of Hindostan is definitely a bigger failure on all grounds i.e. commercial as well as expectations. While the producers of Race 3 made ample money, the distributors did lose a considerable chunk of their investment. On the flip side, the producers i.e. YRF itself will lose a minor chunk of their investment, whereas the sub-distributors have entailed massive losses. Basically, TOH is a loss-making venture for all parties associated thereby being an outright flop!