After the damp squib that was Diwali last year, the box office had reason to celebrate this year’s festival thanks to a strong content line-up including offerings from Bollywood, Hollywood and regional movies.
According to film producer and trade business analyst Girish Johar, the combined all-India take of three films—Sooryavanshi, Eternals and Annaatthe—crossed Rs 150 crore during the opening weekend.
“The response has been good at the box office despite restrictions in theatres (in terms of seating capacity) in some states,” he said.
Tamil offering Annaatthe is estimated to have collected over Rs 80 crore in the first three days of its release. Collections for Hindi film Sooryavanshi for the first weekend are pegged at over Rs 77 crore and Hollywood’s Eternals has done business of around Rs 19 crore at the Indian box office.
Compare Sooryavanshi's opening day revenue of over Rs 26 crore, with pre-COVID business of big Bollywood ventures, 2019 releases like Salman Khan's Dabangg 3 had collected Rs 24.5 crore, Saaho (Hindi) minted Rs 24.4 crore on day one and Akshay Kumar's Kesari did a business of over Rs 21 crore on its first day of release.
Sooryavanshi has fared well in the overseas market as well, with the film earning around Rs 22 crore in the first two days of its release.
While Sooryavanshi has become the highest Bollywood grosser in India so far this year, Johar said that the late opening of advance bookings for the film affected its business.
“The number could have been higher as advance bookings contribute 5-10 percent (to overall collection of a film). With a proper release and proper advance timing, the (box office collection) number would have been higher,” he said.
Film trade experts pointed out that the morning and afternoon shows of Sooryavanshi would have seen better performance if advance bookings had opened up earlier.
Many top multiplexes opened advance booking for Sooryavanshi a night before the film's release on November 5, unlike Eternals that released on the same day but with advance booking open five days before release.
Multiplex chains including PVR, INOX and Cinepolis delayed the advance booking for Sooryavanshi as producers of the film had asked for a distributor share of 60 percent in the first week. Pre-COVID their share was around 50-52 percent in the first week. After days of discussion, the theatre operators and producers settled at a 55 percent distributor share in the first week.
Industry experts pointed out that the producers initially asked for the 60 percent share because that was the benchmark set by Bell Bottom which released earlier this year. While producers negotiated for a 57.5 percent cut, exhibitors said that in states with 100 percent cinema hall occupancy the distributor share will be at the pre-COVID level and where there is 50 percent capacity exhibitors will give distributors a higher share. But distributors later agreed at 55 percent share across the board.
Analyst Karan Taurani, senior vice-president at Elara Capital, said the higher distributor share may not prevail. “The future state of the movie pipeline will be largely on pre-COVID terms. Maybe (Ranveer Singh’s) 83 could get an advantage. So until December (this year), two to three big films could get higher (distributor) share but post December, 80-90 percent of films will go back to pre-COVID revenue share,” he said.
Taurani added that the distributor share for regional content has also gone back to pre-COVID levels.
But when it comes to the impact of delay in advance bookings, Taurani estimates little to no impact on the business of Sooryavanshi. This is because the market share of top multiplexes have fallen back to pre-COVID levels due to the reopening of single-screens theatres, he said.
“The (box office) numbers (of Sooryavanshi) have been on a par with what we saw in pre-COVID times. Advances may have impacted collections of national chains PVR, INOX and Cinepolis but their market share which increased to around 52-53 percent is back to pre-COVID share of around 42 odd percent,” he added.
Taurani said that “the masses have come back to single screens and they have seen a sharper recovery because of the limited number of single screens as even today 15-20 percent of single screens are shut”.
Johar said that occupancy levels during the Diwali weekend also saw an uptick and were between 40 percent and 45 percent versus 15-20 percent in the last few months, especially for Hollywood content.
However, in terms of footfalls, theatres are yet to see a recovery. Taurani noted that multiplexes saw a fall of around 20-25 percent compared with pre-COVID levels and this yet to go back to pre-pandemic numbers.
For this, exhibitors are betting big on upcoming Bollywood releases, especially big ventures like 83, John Abraham’s Satyameva Jayate 2 and Bunty Aur Babli 2 from the house of Yash Raj Films, among others.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
