South film industry exceeds pre-Covid level with more releases, higher box office returns

A still from the film RRR.

Box office revenues crossed Rs 10,000 crore last year, only the second time in India’s history and one of the biggest contributors was the success of South Indian films on the big screen.

While Hindi cinema lost 17 percent market share since 2019, South Indian films have gained a significant share and now command over 50 percent of box office revenues, said a FICCI-EY 2023 report on media and entertainment. The South Indian box office exceeded its pre-pandemic levels while Bollywood and Hollywood still trail behind.

Box office business of Hindi films dropped from Rs 4,800 crore in 2019 to Rs 3,500 crore in 2022 and Hollywood's revenue from India fell from Rs 1,600 crore during the pre-pandemic period to Rs 1,200 crore last year.

On the other hand, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada movie industries' revenues grew from Rs 1,400 crore, Rs 1,500 crore, and Rs 500 crore to Rs 2,100 crore, Rs 1,700 crore and Rs 800 crore, respectively.

Topping the list of highest-grossing Indian films was KGF: Chapter 2 with Rs 970 crore box office collection followed by RRR, which won an Oscar for the song Naatu Naatu with a revenue of Rs 870 crore.

Last year, eight Hindi movies crossed the Rs 100 crore mark and of that, the top two were dubbed versions of South Indian films. Also, there were 11 films from other languages that collected over Rs 100 crore at the box office last year and all of these films were from South Indian cinema.

Along with revenues, the south film industry was ahead in terms of release calendar as well. The highest number of films were released in Telugu at 278 films followed by Kannada at 233, Tamil at 288 and Malayalam at 199. Only 194 films were released in Hindi last year. Overall, 1,623 movies were released in 2022 across languages, 9 percent higher than 2019 levels.

When it comes to the number of screens in the country, it dropped 0.5 percent last year versus 2021 and the screen count is 2 percent lower than the pre-pandemic level. However, the number of screens in South India grew last year. It is estimated that 48 percent of the total number of screens are in five Southern states, said a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) 2023 report.

The potential is much higher as the 4,216 screens in South India just amount to 16 screens per million population, the report added. The region can reach a target of 5,500 screens which will mean 20 screens per million population, the report said.

While South saved the day, the film industry faces the challenge of lower footfalls. While footfalls increased to 994 million in 2022 versus 2021 it is still significantly lower than the 1,460 million footfalls recorded in 2019.

One reason for reduced footfalls was the lower urgency to view a film due to shorter digital release windows, the FICCI-EY report said. “Industry discussions indicated that heavy cinema goers reduced from 2-4 times a month to just once a month, while light visitors (those who visit a cinema a few times a year) also shrunk,” the report added.

Despite the challenges, the film industry is expected to continue its growth and reach a size of Rs 22,800 crore by 2025 driven and the cinema audience base is expected to expand from 120 to 150 million.