Rowdy Rathore
Rowdy Rathore posterAkshay Kumar Facebook page

Director Prabhu Deva's latest offering "Rowdy Rathore" starring Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha has hit big times with record opening collections at the box office.

"Rowdy Rathore", released this Friday, became the biggest opening in Akshay's acting career and the third biggest opening ever in Bollywood.

"Rowdy Rathore" received mixed reviews from the film critics. While some tagged it as "mindless" movie; some rated it well as a complete masala entertainer. However, at the end of the day it is not the critics but the box office collection of a movie that decides the future of the actors in a film. [Read: 'Rowdy Rathore' Movie Review Roundup: Mixed Reaction From Critics]

Deva's second Bollywood directorial movie has put Akshay back into his action shoes and has already recorded the opening collection of a whopping Rs 152.5 million net, casting the "Rowdy Rathore" in the big league that includes earlier action oriented movies like Hrithik Roshan's "Agneepath" and Salman Khan's "Bodyguard", which had big opening last year.

Interestingly, all this box office hits are remakes. 

"Rowdy Rathore" is a remake of super-hit Telugu movie "Vikramarkudu" directed by Rajamouli, starring Ravi Teja and Anushka. Later, it was dubbed in Tamil and Kannada simultaneously.

"Vikramarkudu" became "Siruthai"  in Tamil and "Veera Madakari" in Kannada starring Karthi and Kiccha Sudeep, respectively, as protagonists and was commercial successful as well in both the languages.

The success of this move is just another reminder that masala movies attract the masses anytime even if they fail to impress critics.

"Rowdy Rathore" is another shot in the arm for Deva, who was earlier overwhelmed by the success of Salman Khan starrer "Wanted", a remake of blockbuster-hit "Pokiri" in Telugu, with famous actor Mahesh Babu in the lead role.

Meanwhile, there are many South Indian movies, which were replicated by many Bollywood super stars and become big hits.

Bollywood bigges like Aamir Khan, Samlan Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgan and John Abraham have all acted in remakes of South India films.