Atlee Vs Siddharth Anand At Box Office: Which Director Has More Hits And Flops?

Atlee and Siddharth Anand are among Indian cinema's biggest commercial directors. While Siddharth has slowly transitioned from Bollywood rom-coms to hardcore action cinema, Atlee was limited to Tamil cinema before he made the blockbuster Jawan (2023) with Shah Rukh Khan and overnight catapulted to pan-India fame. The directors' upcoming movies - Siddharth's King and Atlee's untitled film with Allu Arjun - are being mounted on massive scales and are among the most hyped upcoming projects. Here's a comparison of their box office gross, hits and flops.

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Atlee - The only Kollywood director with ₹1000 crore film to his name

Atlee started out as an assistant to the acclaimed director Shankar. With him, Atlee worked on superhits Enthiran (2010) and Nanban (2012). In 2013, he made his directorial debut with Raja Rani, starring Arya, Jai, Nayanthara and Nazriya Nazim. The movie received good response at the box office and was even lauded by critics. Post this, Atlee ventured into the big leagues, directing Vijay in Theri (2016), Mersal (2017) and Bigil (2019). The duo gave back-to-back hits and established themselves as one of the most successful actor-director pairs in the Indian film industry.

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2023 turned out to be a game changer for Atlee as he pivoted to Bollywood with the multi-starrer Jawan. It became the first film from a Tamil director to gross over ₹1000 crore worldwide and won Shah Rukh Khan his first National Award.

Box office gross of Atlee's directorials

Raja Rani - ₹56.80 Crore
Theri - ₹158.80 Crore
Mersal - ₹253.45 Crore
Bigil - ₹303.40 Crore
Jawan - ₹ 1160 Crore

Siddharth Anand - Spyverse's highest-grossing director

Siddharth Anand's initial films Salaam Namaste (2005), Ta Ra Rum Pum (2007), Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008) and Anjaana Anjaani (2010) saw him trying different storylines and lead pairs in the rom-com genre. All movies featured Bollywood's biggest stars, from Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra to Rani Mukerji and Saif Ali Khan. However, not all were hits. After a string of light hearted movies, Siddharth ventured into the action genre with Bang Bang (2014), a remake of Tom Cruise starrer Knight And Day (2010). This movie turned out to be a hit and Siddharth proved his mettle in the action genre.

Post this, he made War (2019) and Pathaan (2023) for YRF Spyverse, which are the highest grossing films in the franchise. His last directorial was Fighter, with Deepika Padukone and Hrithik Roshan. However, despite a big budget and promising storyline, it turned out to be a below average grosser.

Box office gross of Siddharth Anand's directorials

Salaam Namaste - ₹57.23 Crore
Ta Ra Rum Pum - ₹69.14 Crore
Bachna Ae Haseeno - ₹61.57 Crore
Anjaana Anjaani - ₹68.48 Crore
War - ₹471 Crore
Pathaan - ₹1055 Crore
Fighter - ₹358.83 Crore