Gone are the days when Bollywood stars rejoiced entering the Rs 500 crore-in-a-year club. It is the era of the new Rs 700 crore-in-a-year club all thanks to Akshay Kumar. Backed by the success of four films “Kesari”, “Mission Mangal”, “Housefull 4” and “Good Newwz” Akshay scripted a new chapter in the history of Indian showbiz by minting over Rs 700 crore at the box office in 2019. Now, there’s going to be ripple effect in Bollywood showbiz with the tempering of box office expectations in 2020, and top stars reworking their strategy.

According to a list by Bollywood Hungama, Akshay minted Rs 735.42 crore last year, followed by Hrithik Roshan who registered business of Rs 464.85 crore with his act as math wiz Anand Kumar in “Super 30” and mega-hit “War”.

In fact, Riteish Deshmukh had ‘dhamaal’ at the box office in 2019 as he is third in the list by raking in over Rs 396 crore with three releases. Then there is Tiger Shroff for “Student of the Year 2” and “War”.

“Akshay comes out with four films in a year that is why he can reach a new target. It is difficult for one individual with one release in a year to get that figure. He played smart by picking up different subjects… The choice of scripts were good. If we see, ‘War’ and ‘Dabangg 3’, individually did good. But Akshay comes with more films so he can get to that figure.

It was in 2015 when Salman established the “Rs 500 crore-in-a-year club” with the success of “Bajrangi Bhaijaan” and “Prem Ratan Dhan Payo”. Bollywood’s eclectic Ranveer Singh joined Salman in the club in 2018, with the help of “Padmaavat” and “Simmba”.”The number game keeps on changing… There will be consistency when stars give something different,” Adarsh noted.