PVR INOX says India’s box office won’t feel the heat from the US’s 100 percent tariffs on foreign films, pointing to strong local content and rising audience preference for Indian stories.
India has a very strong local film industry, and the bulk of our box office collections come from the domestic market, Gaurav Sharma, Chief Financial Officer, PVR INOX, told Moneycontrol.
"The 100 percent tariffs that the US President Donald Trump has announced will not impact the Indian box office at all," he said.
Sharma added that the modalities of how the tariff is going to be imposed are not yet clear.
"Some movies have a big overseas audience like Punjabi films, but that is mostly in Canada, and it is less in the US. Also, there may be two or three big films in a year which will find a big audience in the US, but that's not going to change the overall dynamics of film creation or the business of films. As of now, it's not very clear how this will pan out, but we feel that it will not have any impact at all on the India box office or PVR INOX," the CFO added.
What’s fueling PVR INOX’s faith in India’s homegrown hits?
It is the back-to-back successes this year that are making the multiplex chain more confident about India's box office business. After narrowing its losses to Rs 54 crore in the first quarter of FY26, the company reported consolidated net profit of Rs 105.7 crore in the second quarter.
Hindi and Hollywood films that led the charge in the first quarter continued their strong momentum in the subsequent quarter as well.
"Hollywood has grown more than the Hindi segment for us. If you compare with quarter two of last year versus this year, the (Hindi movies') share in the box office has been around 46 percent, which is more or less the same. What's been driving the box office for us this time is Hollywood. The share of Hollywood is double from 12 percent to 24 percent," Sharma said.
He cited successful English films this year like F1, Jurassic World, The Conjuring, Superman, Demon Slayer, and Fantastic Four.
After Hollywood's share in the box office dropped significantly due to the Writers Guild of America strike, the industry delivered a remarkable turnaround in the first half of FY26, with its collections crossing Rs 500 crore in Q2.
Even Hindi language content had a consistent release calendar this financial year, and strong content kept audiences engaged. Blockbusters like Saiyaara did a business of Rs 400 crore, and Mahavatar Narsimha earned over Rs 300 crore.
PVR INOX's Hindi Gross Box Office Collections (GBOC) increased 21 percent to Rs 542 crore in Q2FY26 from Rs 447 crore during the same period a year ago.
Regional's steady run
Sharma pointed out that regional movies continued to make a mark on audiences. Kannada delivered over 100 percent year-on-year growth, led by the phenomenal success of Su from So. Malayalam too expanded by nearly 50 percent, with Lokah: Chapter 1 emerging as the highest-grossing Malayalam film ever, crossing industry collections of Rs 180 crore. Alongside these content-led triumphs, star-driven titles like Coolie in Tamil, They Call Him OG, and Mirai in Telugu struck a strong chord with audiences.
PVR INOX's GBOC of regional movies stood at Rs 308 crore, up 3 percent year-on-year.
More hits
It is not just big films that are driving footfalls in theatres; the market for small and medium-sized films is growing as well.
For PVR INOX, footfalls in Q2 grew 15 percent to 4.45 crore, up from 3.88 crore. In the first half of FY26, footfalls stood at 7.85 crore, up 13 percent from 6.92 crore.
"It looks like the recovery is in structural strength, as the dependence is not just on mega blockbusters. Medium and smaller budget films are doing well, for instance, Mahavatar Narsimha, which is the first animation film to do so well. Then there was Saiyaara that had newcomers, yet it emerged successful," Sharma said.
On one hand, Kantara has emerged as the first film this year to do business of Rs 500 crore. On the other hand, July was one of the biggest months for theatres due to successful ventures like Saiyaara and Mahavatar Narsimha. "August had movie releases like Rajinikanth's Coolie and Hrithik Roshan's War 2, and then September had Jolly LLB crossing Rs 100 crore," Sharma added.
The Indian box office grew 15 percent year-on-year in the first half of FY26, driven not by a few mega blockbusters but by a steady and diverse slate of films across languages and scales. In Q2 alone, 12 films crossed the Rs 100 crore mark, taking the H1 total to 22 — the highest post-Covid.
"This balance between content-driven successes and star-led hits signals a very encouraging sign for the long-term growth of the industry which we were missing in the last couple of years because the content was somehow not connecting with the audience. Filmmakers have sort of understood what sort of films they need to make which will connect with the audience of this age," Sharma said.
Will the strong box office momentum continue?
"When I look at the movie lineup in Q3 and Q4, we expect H2 (second half) performance to be at least equal to, if not better than what we have seen in H1. In fact, we are reasonably confident that we will do better numbers in H2 as compared to H1," the CFO said.
He also expects to beat the performance of FY24 which so far is the biggest year in terms of box office business in the post-COVID period.
"In FY24, we saw five films crossing Rs 500 crore mark but so far in FY26 we have only one film crossing Rs 500 crore yet the overall Hindi box office is at similar levels," Sharma said.
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