Fast and furious: A blockbuster 2023 helps India box office recover faster than global peers

Blockbusters like Jawan were the biggest contributors to the growth in India box office last year.

Indian box office has hit it big with the success of horror comedy Stree 2, which continues its strong run in theatres even after 28 days. Like Stree 2, 2023, too, was a good year for India’s cinema business, which helped it stage a stronger recovery in the post-Covid period compared to global counterparts.

In 2023, blockbusters like Shah Rukh Khan's Pathaan and Jawan, Sunny Deol's Gadar 2 and Ranbir Kapoor's Animal led a breakout year for the business.

Bollywood's resurgence saw Indian films did their highest-ever business of Rs 12,226 crore in 2023. The Hindi film business surpassed Rs 5,000 crore for the first time, with four movies each earning more than Rs 500 crore, according to PVR Inox annual report, which cited data from media consulting firm Ormax.

India was one of the few markets where collections in 2023 surpassed pre-pandemic (2019) business.

India's box office grew to $1.5 billion (Rs 12,226 crore) in 2023 from $1.3 billion (Rs 10,948 crore) in 2019, an 11.6 percent growth, the report said.

North America's box office was down 20 percent at $9.1 billion from $11.4 billion in 2019.

Overall, in 2023, global box office collections were at $33.9 billion, down from $42.3 billion in 2019.

Other markets such as China, Korea and Japan saw 83 percent, 66 percent and 62 percent recovery, respectively.

China's 2023 collections were at $7.7 billion against $9.3 billion in 2019. Korea recorded $1 billion against $1.5 billion and Japan $1.5 billion against $2.4 billion in 2019.

India also recorded highest recovery in cinema footfalls at 92 percent to 943 million people coming to theatres in 2023 against 1,030 million in 2019.

After India, Japan saw strong recovery at 80 percent to 156 million from 195 million in 2019.

Cinemas in China saw 76 percent recovery in footfalls at 1,300 million in 2023 from 1,700 million in pre-Covid period. The US and Canada recorded 67 percent recovery to 825 million from 1,240 million in 2019.

Korea saw the lowest footfall recovery at 55 percent at 125 million in 20223 from 227 million in 2019.

India's screen count remained lower than pre-Covid levels, whereas the number of screens China and Japan has gone up.

India has 9,208 screens in 2023, down from 9,527 in 2019. China grew to 86,310 from 69,787 and Japan 3,653 in 2023 from 3,583 in the pre-Covid period.

Some other box office trends that stood out in 2023 include the high contribution of top 10 blockbusters.

Despite almost 1,800 movies releasing in 2023, the top 10 dominated the market, accounting for 40 percent of the total earnings, the annual report noted.

Jawan reigned supreme as the year’s highest grosser, raking in Rs 734 crore.

More than 400 movies hit streaming platforms in 2023, up 30 percent from 2022 but the number of direct-to-digital releases almost halved to 57 from 105 in 2022.