Amitabh Bachchan at 80: Five films in 2022, KBC 14, and being India’s top brand endorser, Big B refuses to slow down.
Amitabh Bachchan has been a constant presence on our screens in 2022, perhaps more so than others. He’s been almost everywhere, be it television, films, social media presence or brand endorsements. While it’s impressive that Akshay Kumar, at the age of 55, has churned out four films this year, regardless of their success rate, Amitabh Bachchan is several steps ahead. The legitimate OG superstar has already released 4 films this year, and the fifth one, Uunchai is just around the corner. They were a peculiar mix of all genres, as is always the case with Bachchan — while Jhund was a biographical sports drama, Brahmastra was a fantastical mythological sci-fi film, and Goodbye was an emotional story, dealing with the tricky subject of grief. Runway 34 was a thriller film where he played the role of the head of AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau). It’s one of the most remarkable aspects about Bachchan, despite his towering stardom, he can fit into any role, be it as an aged cranky father in Piku, a merciless lawyer in Badla, or a stingy miser in Gulabo Sitabo.
Most of the films in 2022 under-performed at the box office, except for Brahmastra, yet Amitabh Bachchan was always seen as the best aspect of the films, lending gravitas to even the most underwhelming of offerings. Nevertheless, next is Uunchai, directed by Sooraj Barjatya. It promises to be a slice-of-life film that revolves around a healing journey undertaken by four friends to scale Mount Everest. He also served as the narrator for the Hindi version of Prabhas and Pooja Hegde’s Radhey Shyam. Bachchan is still not sitting idle after this, as he has Project K with Prabhas and Deepika Padukone.
