When Sylvester Stallone tweeted an invitation to Salman Khan to join the star cast of The Expendables franchise, there was a lot of rejoicing back home. A Bollywood actor being a part of a popular Hollywood film is a big deal. But here’s why good old Rambo may need our Dabangg star more than the other way round.
For starters just take a look at the number of followers both these action stars have on Twitter. While Sylvester Stallone with all his Hollywood might has 1.3 million followers, Salman Khan leads with a huge margin of 12 million total! You don’t need to be a marketing guru to figure out what happens when those 12 million followers get converted into ticket sales.
Secondly The Expendables franchise is definitely losing steam. The original film raked in $ 274 million worldwide and the sequel jumped to $ 311 million, but the latest one dipped to a low of just $ 206 million. So adding Salman to the team will definitely be a shot in the arm.
India is one of the top global markets for Hollywood blockbusters. We just saw Furious 7 rake in over Rs 140 crore gross and Avengers: Age of Ultron followed it up by being the second biggest Hollywood box-office opener in India, beating all the Hindi releases so far in 2015. In pure box-office terms India added a significant total of $ 11.7 million to the Avengers’ 7-day total of $287 million.
Now add Salman Khan’s box-office clout to those numbers that and you’ll know why Sylvester Stallone wants to reach out to Salman Khan. Salman bhai is definitely not expendable!