Now that Shaandaar has sunk without a trace at the box office, we hear that leading man Shahid Kapoor is fuming. Sources close to the actor have reported that he was never convinced about the script, and felt that it “lacked substance”.
So why then did he go ahead with the project? “Look, he did the film for producer Madhu Mantena; Shahid and Madhu are close friends. Madhu was the only reason that Shahid overlooked the flimsy storyline in the first place. But now Shahid’s feeling pretty angry about the whole debacle,” our source says.
Shahid is upset not just because Shaandaar failed to deliver at the box office, and lowered the career high he was on after Haider, but also because it has dented his father Pankaj Kapur’s standing. Pankaj’s previous two films — Vishal Bhardwaj’s Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola and Homi Adajania’s Finding Fanny — were also not big box office performers. “Pankaj saab is very selective about the work he takes up,” our source points out. “So even more than for himself, Shahid is upset that his father has to go through this (the panning of Shaandaar).”
Needless to say, the entire team of the film has been left stunned by Shaandaar’s critical and commercial drubbing. Made at an estimated budget of Rs 60 crores, the film registered a steep drop in box office collections over the weekend. “The collections went from around Rs 16 crores on the first day to Rs 7 crores on the second day, and fell even lower thereafter,” a trade expert said.
