Aamir Khan Birthday: Why 'Mr. Perfectionist' has delivered more hits than other Khans in the past decade?

Bollywood's bankable superstar, Aamir Khan turned 58 today. The actor has been quoted saying various media interactions that he believes in "quality over quantity". This phenomenon has earned him the title of 'Mr. Perfectionist'. As the superstar turns a year older today, Zee Business tried to decode what paved the path for him to deliver back-to-back superhit films in the last decade, while the other two Khans faced some major flops during this period.

Between 2012 and 2022, the only flop films that Aamir Khan has delivered are 'Thugs of Hindustan' and 'Laal Singh Chaddha'. However, the latter became one of the top-viewed films on OTT platform, after its release on the web. Thus, only his last two movies have failed to make an impact at the box office.

Apart from that, all his movies starting from 'Talaash: The Answer Lies Within' in 2012 to 'Secret Superstar' in 2017, have been major hits. However, the other two Khans of Bollywood — Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan — have delivered some major duds like 'Prem Ratan Dhan Payo', 'Tubelight', 'Radhe', 'Fan', 'Zero', 'Dilwale', among others. 

We spoke to well-known film critic Taran Adarsh to get an understanding of why Aamir Khan’s movies have managed to break box-office records decade-after-decade, while the others have struggled for such longevity.

  
1.       Content is the King

As pointed out by several film critics, Aamir Khan's films have mostly been heavily content-driven. Barring  'Thugs of Hindustan', his other films have not had extreme visual effects (VFX) and the realistic settings have appealed to the audiences. “From Ghajini to Dangal, the content has been unmatchable. Audiences have not seen such kind of content in any movie before,” Taran Adarsh added. Thus, for most of the movies, audiences could connect at a very subliminal level, somewhere they find the resemblance of their life in the stories of films like 'Dangal' and 'Secret Superstar'.

2.       Experimental in Nature  

Aamir Khan has always been praised for the kind of characters he plays on screen and the experiments he does with every character he portrays. For example, Shakti Kumar, the pop-singer in 'Secret Superstar' will bear zero resemblance with the father figure of wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat in 'Dangal'.  “The films have a lot of emphasis on different Aamir Khan who is there on-screen. The performances have been very different in every film,” added Adarsh.

3.       Torchbearer of 'Rs 100 crore Club'

While several Bollywood movies these days make it beyond the collection thresholds of Rs 100 crore, it is one of his movies that first made the record. The 'Rs 100 Crore Club' was born when 'Ghajini' (2008) became the first Indian film to net over Rs 100 crores domestically in India, soon after which the term "100 Crore Club" was coined.

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