Ram Charan, Jr NTR and Alia Bhatt-starrer RRR is all set to become the second-highest grossing film in India, with lifetime collections expected to touch Rs 700 crore in the domestic market, second only to Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, which collected over Rs 1,000 crore.
RRR is expected to surpass the box office numbers of Rajinikanth’s 2.0, which enjoyed a business of around Rs 519 crore, and Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal, which collected Rs 495 crore at the Indian box office.
Released on 7,000 screens, RRR collected around Rs 300-350 crore on its opening weekend for all versions (Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam) and its first-week collection is estimated to be Rs 450-500 crore.
Breaking the box office
“The Hindi version of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion did Rs 500 crore and RRR will do Rs 200-300 crore. But the Telugu and Tamil version will be much closer and may even cross Baahubali 2’s number. So, it will be the second-best film in India, said Rajender Singh Jyala, multiplex operator INOX Leisure’s Chief Programming Officer.
He added that in less than a week the theatre chain has sold 17 lakh tickets for RRR. “In the southern market, there were morning shows as early as 7 am that went housefull. In the Hindi belt, the film started picking up from the evening slot and went housefull on opening day. For the weekend, average occupancy was 80-85 percent pan-India and weekdays it was 65-70 percent."
Devang Sampat, CEO, Cinepolis India, noted that the weekend saw close to 75 percent occupancy and this sustained at over 60 percent levels during the weekdays. “Our admits have crossed the highest footfalls for 2022. The great news is that apart from the South, the movie has performed well in the West and North regions as well.”
Ashish Saksena, BookMyShow’s COO – Cinemas, noted that the movie’s strong run began from the advance sales, with RRR crossing the two million tickets mark before release, clocking the highest advance sales for any film on the platform following the Omicron wave.
Leading the recovery
Amit Sharma, MD, Miraj Cinemas, said that thanks to RRR, The Kashmir Files and Gangubai Kathiawadi, the multiplex’s footfalls in March were up 30 percent and revenue rose 45-50 percent compared to its average numbers in the pre-pandemic period.
Analyst Karan Taurani, senior vice-president, Elara Capital, sees over 30 percent growth in March box office revenues for exhibitors, including PVR and INOX, versus the same period in 2019. “We estimate an 80 percent recovery in Q4FY22 versus pre-Covid levels, backed by The Kashmir Files, RRR and Gangubai Kathiawadi."
Jyala said that March has been the biggest ever month for INOX and the entire industry. “While we were expecting RRR to bring the numbers back to pre-Covid levels, the recovery started with The Kashmir Files, which was never touted as a Rs 250-300 crore film."
According to Cinepolis’ Sampat, with the release of RRR, and Covid-related restrictions being removed, the recovery of the industry to pre-Covid levels is complete. “We look forward to the new releases that are coming up to set new records in the exhibition industry.”
Taurani expects RRR to continue to perform well at the box office as the film will have a complete run because the next releases are in the second week of April (Shahid Kapoor’s Jersey and Yash-starrer KGF 2 will release on April 14). “So, it will have a free run for a week or 10 days. Also, business in the overseas market for this film has been better than Baahubali 2 for the opening weekend, which is because of pent-up demand,” he added.
In addition, RRR is seeing strong traction across both single screens and multiplexes. In fact, Taurani said that 65 percent of RRR’s overall box office numbers are led by single screens.
“Content like RRR does better in single screens. Out of the Rs 450-500 crore, Rs 110-120 crore is from the Hindi belt and the rest is from the South, which is dominated by single screens. So, it is safe to say that this film has seen more business in single screens than multiplexes. In the South market, 70 percent is single screens and the rest is multiplexes,” he added.
Blockbuster beyond south
Miraj Cinemas’ Sharma said that markets such as Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat are clear winners in the northern/western part of the country. “In all our Telugu territories it was 100 percent occupancy on weekends.”
Saksena noted that while the Telugu version of the film is expectedly leading the way, the Hindi and Tamil language versions of RRR have contributed 38 percent of the ticket sales. "After Hyderabad, for its Telugu version, Bengaluru is a close second in terms of audience interest for RRR in the Telugu language. We expect a significant contribution from Tier-2 and -3 cities as well,” he added.
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