Rajkumar Gupta's Ghanchakkar underperformed at the box office. The film tried to be too many films in one film and somehow didn't come together as a solid narrative. Vidya Balan was underutilised as the OTT Punjabi housewife — there wasn't much for her to do in the film other than keep muttering 'hain.' But it's the film's male star Emraan Hashmi who will be most affected by the film's lackluster show. Ghanchakkar is the third Emraan starrer after Ek Thi Daayan and Shanghai, which has disappointed the trade. It's a strange situation that Emraan finds himself in. Just when Bollywood filmmakers have started taking him seriously, his stocks have started dipping. Having started out as the Bhatt company's boy, he followed the memo to the word, he reveled in his 'Serial Kisser' image, delivered the chartbusters and the hit films. Inspite of his box office cred, the big daddies of Bollywood took their sweet time to consider Emraan worthy enough for their vehicles.

The tide turned when Ekta Kapoor signed him for Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai. Emraan then went on to consolidate his status with The Dirty Picture, Raaz 2 and Jannat 2. And then came the big shift when Dibakar Bannerjee signed him for Shanghai wherein he delivered a noteworthy performance. Post Shanghai Emraan's cinema choices have veered towards the artistic and the edgy. A star however good he is, eventually ends up being an employee of his image. There are certain films that a star does just to keep his fan base happy. Salman Khan's current filmography will illustrate this point. In Emraan's case, his fans like and expect him to be the loveable bad boy who sings Aatif Aslam songs preferably in Bhatt camp films. It'll be interesting to see how Emraan navigates this phase in his career. For now, he seems to be in the 'Why fix when it ain't broke' route, having signed the remake of Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin to be produced by Bhatts but there's Karan Johar's Unglee and Dharma-Balaji's Badtameez Dil also in the offing. Emraan has proved