Box office: Ticket sales of new Hindi releases hit a low of Rs 5 crore this Friday

A still from the film 'Doctor G'.

It was another poor day for Hindi films at the box office, as new releases brought in just a little over Rs 5 crore.

This is in fact an extremely poor day for Bollywood as one would traditionally expect Rs 10-15 crore from combined new releases - big and small - on an opening day. So, when less than half of that comes in, it is really disheartening. The movies released were also notable, in the form of Ayushmann Khurranna’s Doctor G, Parineeti Chopra’s Code Name Tiranga and south dubbed release Kantara.

Let’s talk about Doctor G first. The film did as expected, what with Rs 3.87 crore coming on the first day. Among the mid-budget releases to have arrived in 2022, these are reasonably decent numbers. Many others, like Jayeshbhai Jordaar and Jersey, this year have opened in the Rs 2-3 crore range. In fact, some have struggled to hit even the Rs 2 crore mark, as was the case with Jhund and the recent release Goodbye.

Of course, actor Ayushmann Khurranna has delivered a flurry of 100 Crore Club successes (Badhai Ho, Dream Girl, Bala) and mid-level successes like Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhan in the past. That said, it was his own film Gulabo Sitabo which started the trend of concept-based films going straight to OTT, and now Doctor G, also a message film, is seeing footfalls that are not in line with the release size. Now it all boils down to the kind of jump that the film sees today and tomorrow - back of the envelope calculations show it must sell tickets in the vicinity of Rs 18 crore this weekend, to hit lifetime earnings of Rs 40-50 crore. This film also has Rakul Preet Singh and Shefali Shah in the lead roles.

The other major Bollywood release of the week was Code Name Tiranga, and that turned out to be a complete non-starter. Not that it’s surprising since after the initial promo, there was just no marketing follow-through whatsoever. The film was left to fend for itself with a minimal release size. For the last one year, even the most heavily promoted films have not really found much traction. No wonder then, that the Parineeti Chopra starrer had a very poor start, with just Rs 0.15 crore* coming on the first day.

To be sure, Chopra's last film Saina had opened at similar levels but that was during the pandemic when there were a lot more restrictions on theatres. That film had folded up at a lifetime number of a little over Rs 1 crore, and Code Name Tiranga may be headed the same way.

Dubbed Kannada release Kantara collected Rs 1.27 crore on its opening day. The Hindi version of the film has opened decently, and all eyes are on how the collections turn out to be today and tomorrow. The film was not much hyped before its arrival in theatres. But since south films are getting better pan-India reception than ever before, it had seemed that Kantara would benefit as well. The collections aren't great for Day 1, but the reports are good, and one can expect better footfalls in theatres today and tomorrow.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources