The big five may be there for next year and outside the event film there is another strategy which has been working very well for the last few years and that is the Akshay Kumar high concept low budget film. These films are getting to 100 crore when on production budgets they should have no chance to be even close to that mark. 

There have been the likes of Airlift, Jolly LLB 2 and Toilet Ek Prem Katha among others. Last year saw Jolly LLB 2 and Toilet Ek Prem Katha and while the former was probably not high concept it was a low budget film shot in a quick fast time in UP. Toilet Ek Prem Katha falls in the high concept low budget category and grossed 132 crore nett which is a huge number for a film which essentially had just a 23 crore spend to produce the film without PA and Akshay Kumar cost.

The difference with a a social relevant film like Toilet Ek Prem Katha and say a another socially relevant film like Pink for example is that it actually reaches the audience for whom you are trying to say something. A Pink is just watched by the upper middle class in metros who are generally well educated and aware of the issues the film is trying to educate about. On television it tanks as no one watches so the audience in the lower stratus of society which needs the message is not reached. Toilet Ek Prem Katha may also not quite reach there in the theaters but with 1.8 crore impression in first three television viewings and many more to come, the job is done.

Now in January this high concept low budget strategy will again be put to the test with Padman and here the film has been produced at an ever lower cost than Toilet Ek Prem Katha at 21 crore with a quick fast shoot in MP and a few days in the US. There is not much chance to go wrong here financially for the investors when the production budget is so low unless the distributors come and pay some ridiculous amounts like with Tubelight but that is not the case here.

Padman is clashing with Aiyary and its production cost is actually lower than that film. The other PAD film Padmavati or Padmavat now has a production cost more than five times higher than Padman. It has a Republic Day release and is likely to be the highest Akshay Kumar opener ever with chances of collections going towards the 20 crore nett mark. It may well be that the first day nett collections will be as much as the production cost of the film.

The difference between the recent Akshay Kumar low budget concept films and others which are similar is that they have that commercial element, Toilet Ek Prem Katha had the humour and emotions and Padman looks to be to be similar though a totally different story. It is this commercial element which is taking these films to 100 or 125 crore nett which may not be a huge sum as films are doing 500 crore nett now but for the likes of Toilet Ek Prem Katha and Padman they are huge numbers.