'What goes up must come down'

"What goes up must come down," Akshay Kumar says softly, philosophically, invoking Isaac Newton while speaking of his own career graph.

It's been a rough year for the actor. After tremendous hype, the megabudgeted Chandni Chowk To China was an utter commercial and critical failure. Tasveer 8x10 met a similar fate, and while Kambakkht Ishq had an opening that ensured it wasn't a complete commercial loss, the film was savaged by critics and far from being a hit.

And this must be far from what Kumar, 42, is used to these days. Over the last four years, he has steadily gone from strength to strength, toppling the Khans in both box office consistency as well as acting fees.

The Akshay Kumar genre, much like the industry-dominating Govinda films in the 1990s, has enjoyed success despite critical bashing and mostly mediocre screenwriting. Kumar's tremendous screen presence has seen things fall into place, his goofy-hero persona warmly and unerringly striking a chord among the audience.

Now comes Blue, one of the year's biggest budgeted releases. Directed by newcomer Anthony D'Souza, the film stars Sanjay Dutt, Lara Dutta and Zayed Khan alongside him, but neither of those stars have enjoyed recent box office success. Nope, the pressure for this one's squarely on Akshay. Again.