Vivek Agnihotri's hard-hitting political drama The Kashmir Files, based on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s, is the second-biggest blockbuster of the year after Ayan Mukerjee's fantasy adventure Brahmastra Part One: Shiva as the former earned approximately Rs 341 crore at the box office worldwide.
Before The Kashmir Files, Agnihotri's last theatrical release was The Tashkent Files, based on the investigation of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's death, in 2019. The film won two National Film Awards including one for Best Supporting Actress to the director's wife Pallavi Joshi, and another to the director himself for Best Dialogues.
Recently, a Twitter user wrote a tweet saying that The Tashkent Files is a better film than The Kashmir Files and the filmmaker himself replied to him. "@vivekagnihotri Kashmir Files may have been a bigger success, but Tashkent Files was a much better movie purely from a cinematic perspective. Hope you will get back to that high quality of cinema making and go even higher", wrote a Twitter user. Replying to him, the director wrote, "Will try not to disappoint you."
Starring Mithun Chakraborty, Naseeruddin Shah, Shweta Basu Prasad, Mandira Bedi, Pankaj Tripathi, and Prakash Belawadi among others, the 2019 release only earned around Rs 20 crore at the box office. The film largely opened to negative reviews, but still became a sleeper hit.
READ | Brahmastra, The Kashmir Files, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2: Biggest Bollywood blockbusters in post-pandemic era
Meanwhile, Vivek Agnihotri recently announced his next film titled The Vaccine War based on India's fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. The film will release in theaters worldwide on August 15, coinciding with Independence Day 2023, in eleven languages. It will clash with Sandeep Reddy Vanga's crime thriller Animal, starring Ranbir Kapoor and Rashmika Mandanna in the lead, which is set for its theatrical release on August 11 next year.
