Ba John BO debacle: Video of Atlee pitting Varun Dhawan against RK has aged like milk, concludes internet

Varun Dhawan’s massy action hero era may just be tanking even before a full fledged take off. On Chrmas day earlier this week, the actor saw through the release of what was being anticipated to be one of his stronger attempts at getting ahold of box office glory. The Kalees-helmed Ba John, incidentally an Atlee production, is an adaptation of Tamil blockbuster Theri (2016) starring Thalapathy Vijay in the lead. Easily among the Tamil icon’s most memorable films, Varun had tall, TALL boots to fill as soon as he signed on. Varun Dhawan’s Ba John is nowhere near Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal when it comes to box office pull: Atlee’s former claims put him in the line of fire With taking on an entirely new on-screen persona while attempting to live up to audience expectations that came with emulating Thalapathy Vijay’s magic on screen, Varun already had enough on his plate. Atlee’s astronomical claims however, may just have buried any cred Varun could have potentially walked away with from the project. During a press event for the film, Atlee very confidently asserted how Varun Dhawan was the next ‘superstar’ in the making and that Ba John was going to be that final push for him. Now mind you, ‘superstar’ is a tag that in Bollywood only extends itself to the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan to name the most elite few. Atlee didn’t stop there. A battle lost for Varun before it even began. But that’s not all. Atlee even went as far as to directly pit Varun against Ranbir Kapoor, who with one of the biggest fiscal successes of the industry last year, Animal, hit play on his golden streak again. As per Atlee, Ba John was supposed to do for Varun what Animal did for Ranbir. It seemed impossible, as soon as the filmmaker verbalised the thought. And now Ba John’s box office report, rather dismal, has made sure that the internet reopens the (over)confident sell, with a lot of notes to share. Comments like “Ye toh what Animal did to Bob Deol bhi nahi kar paaya”, “Ranbir alredy had a good fan base animal just increased it” and “Ranbir already proved himself many years ago with Rockstar and Barfi, Varun can never come close to what Ranbir can perform on screen!” summed up the internet’s take on Atlee’s foot-in-mouth moment. Many even absolved Varun of direct blame when it came to the unsuccessful attempt to create hype, raising eyebrows at Atlee instead: “Atlee jinxed the film saying this sentence. Kanguva producers did the same make..The marketing wasn’t right at all .. it didn’t create any hype at all” read a comment. Reportedly mounted on a budget of ₹180 crores, a Sacnilk report shares that over a 2-day run, one of which was a major holiday, the film has managed to rake in only ₹16.5 crores — and these are worldwide figures. Even a ‘surprise’ cameo from Salman Khan doesn’t seem like a magic trick enough to save the film. Ba John, also starring Keerthy Suresh, Wamiqa Gabbi and Jackie Shroff, is currently running in theatres.