Bhoothnath Returns

Bhoothnath Returns is a 2014 Indian Hindi-language supernatural comedy film directed by Nitesh Tiwari and produced by Bhushan Kumar. A sequel to the 2008 film Bhoothnath, the film revolves around Bhoothnath (Amitabh Bachchan) who is mocked in a Bhoothworld for his inability to scare children before being sent back to Earth to redeem himself. The film was released on 11 April 2014.

The Election Commission of India demanded tax-free status for Bhoothnath Returns, stating, "The state governments should support the strong social message that emanates from the film. Granting tax-free status to this film would make people aware of their rights as voters, like making voter ID cards or not treating polling day as a holiday". The Uttar Pradesh government has declared tax-free status to film on 30 April 2014.

Bhoothnath Returns: The Game, an election mobile video game developed by Vroovy (a joint venture of Hungama and Gameshastra) was also released as a tie-in item to the film.

Plot
The story continues from the previous film.

Kailash Nath, also known as Bhoothnath, enters the Bhoothworld, where he is mocked and questioned about his abilities as a ghost as he was unsuccessful in scaring any children. To redeem himself, he returns to India, where he tries his best to scare children but is unsuccessful with his attempts asthe children have become strong physically, mentally, and verbally. However, a boy named Akhrot can see him in his true form. Akhrot is not scared of Bhoothnath but helps him scare a few children; in return, he asks Bhoothnath to act scared of him and to run away from a haunted house while he chants mantras in front of the children, so that they can accept him on their cricket team.

Bhoothnath decides to help Akhrot further by helping him earn money by giving ghosts living in under-construction high rises peace by fulfilling the wishes they were still staying back on Earth as ghosts for; in the process, they come to know why the ghosts died and help their families get insurance money by scaring corrupt insurance officers, further learning in this process about Bhau, a former criminal who is now a corrupt politician. Seeing the amount of corruption in India, and encouraged by Akhrot, Bhoothnath decides to contest the upcoming elections. Soon, the rivalry between Bhoothnath and Bhau heats up, to the extent that Bhoothnath sacrifices his powers to win. One day before the elections, a rally is to be held by Bhoothnath to encourage a high turnout on election day. Bhau's men threaten to kill Akhrot unless he prevents the rally from happening, but Akhrot refuses and is ready to face the consequences.

On the day of the rally, Bhau's men injure Akhrot grievously for his non-compliance, which causes Bhoothnath to leave his rally to attend to Akhrot in the hospital. He goes to the Bhoothworld and begs for Akhrot's life. They tell him that if Bhoothnath wins the election, they will spare Akhrot's life. Meanwhile, Bhau uses Bhoothnath's absence at the rally to his advantage and tries to influence the audience to vote for him. However, on election day, the majority of the public votes for Bhoothnath. The next day, Bhootnath sees Akhrot's heartbeat rising and realizes that he won the election. The film ends with Akhrot regaining consciousness and everybody celebrating the success of Bhoothnath.

Cast

 * Amitabh Bachchan as Kailash Nath a.k.a. Bhoothnath
 * Shah Rukh Khan as Aditya "Adi" Sharma (cameo appearance)
 * Ranbir Kapoor as himself (cameo appearance)
 * Boman Irani as Bhau Sahib
 * Anurag Kashyap as himself (cameo appearance)
 * Parth Bhalerao as Akhrot
 * Usha Jadhav as Bindia Pathak
 * Sanjay Mishra as Mishti Baihud
 * Kamlesh Sawant as Police Inspector
 * Brijendra Kala as Lallan
 * Usha Nadkarni as Lolita Singh
 * Kurush Deboo as Psychiatrist
 * Gajraj Rao as Bade Sahaab
 * Subrat Dutta as Engineer Ghost
 * Vijay Maurya as the ghost of a commoner
 * Ajay Jadhav as Constable Shinde

Soundtrack
The film score was composed by Hitesh Sonik while the songs featured in the film were composed by Ram Sampath, Meet Bros Anjjan and Palash Muchhal. Yo Yo Honey Singh also composed one promotional song for the film which marked his first collaboration with Amitabh Bachchan.

Critical reception
Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama gave the movie 3.5 stars and said that "Bhoothnath Returns is made with noble intentions and the message it conveys resonates in the second hour". Suprateek Chatterejee from First Post called it "a must watch for kids" and found that its "shamelessly manipulative moments are tempered with deliberate humour". A Filmfare reviewer found that the "strength of this film is in its writing" and praised Amitabh Bachchan for his performance whilst giving the movie 3 stars. Rohit Khilnani of India Today, gave the movie 3.5/5 stars and said, "There is no doubt that Bhoothnath will entertain cine-goers. It's entertainment, Bachchan style!"

Box office
Bhoothnath returns collected inr 300000000 domestic and inr 20000000 overseas(as of 20 April 2014). Satellite rights of the film is sold to Sony for inr 210000000; made it a good profitable venture for producers.

The film that released in over 1,300 theatres saw a "grand" opening of 93% collecting inr 32500000—inr 35000000 on its first day with stiff competition from the film Disco Singh. With a growth of 60% over its first day collection, it collected inr 55000000 on its second day. After the completion of the films' first weekend, it managed a "fair" collection of inr 165000000. It collected around inr 40000000 and inr 17500000—inr 20000000 on its first Monday and Tuesday respectively, totalling inr 225000000 over the first five days of its release. After a good growth on Monday, it saw a slide in its collections over the next few days to end up collecting inr 260000000 in its first week.