For decades, Diwali has been Bollywood’s favourite release window. The festival of lights often doubled as the festival of stars. Salman, Shah Rukh, Aamir. Ranbir, Kareena, or Kapoor after Kapoor. The calendar would be marked. The big boys and girls would arrive with fanfare, fireworks, and full-page ads. It was tradition.
But this Diwali, things took a turn.
There was no Khan. No Kapoor. And yet, cinema halls were buzzing. Crowds queued up. Tickets sold out. Screens filled. At the centre of it all? Thamma—a film with no towering superstar, no sprawling PR machine, no overhyped extravaganza. Just solid storytelling, crowd-friendly themes, and box-office bite.
Starring Ayushmann Khurrana and Rashmika Mandanna, Thamma tapped into something deeper. Nostalgia, revenge, and old-school romance, all wrapped in the proven Maddock Horror Comedy Universe. It pulled in ₹25.11 crore on Day 1, followed by ₹18 crore on a working Day 2. That’s ₹42 crore in two days. Without the Khans. Without a Kapoor. That speaks volumes.
Then came Deewaniyat. A smaller release, a bit noiseless in comparison, but no less effective. While it didn’t make the same noise as Thamma, it caught on quickly in interiors. Its music played on loop. Its dialogues trended. Word of mouth spread like wildfire. The audiences that once flocked to megastars found freshness instead. And they liked it.
This Diwali proved that the audience is no longer chasing surnames. They’re chasing stories. They want impact, not just imagery. They want new faces, grounded themes, and honest performances. Not everything needs a ₹200 crore spectacle. Sometimes, it’s enough to remind people why they fell in love with cinema in the first place.
And maybe that’s what this Diwali truly signalled. A passing of the torch. A reminder that the festival can still belong to Bollywood—but it doesn’t have to belong to the same faces every year. Maybe the firecrackers don’t need to be celebrity-driven. Maybe, just maybe, they can be story-driven.
No Khan. No Kapoor. No problem.