Maryam Farooqui Moneycontrol News
Superheroes are ruling the Indian box office with Justice League taking the top spot after fighting off its Bollywood competitors in Aksar 2 and Vidya Balan’s Tumhari Sulu.
The new offering from the DC Universe minted Rs 5.50 crore as against Rs 2.65 crore earned by Tumhari Sulu and Rs 75 lakh by Aksar 2 on opening day.
However, the film could not surpass Thor Ragnarok’s first day numbers that went up to Rs 7.75 crore, taking the film to seventh place for highest opening collections in the country.
With very little competition from Bollywood offerings and the fading interest for previous releases like Golmaal Again, Justice League soared during the last two days with its revenue touching Rs 11.50 crore.
On the other hand, Tumahari Sulu could make only Rs 6.90 crore despite seeing a 60 percent growth on second day. Aksar 2 failed to make its mark at the box office and ended up grossing Rs 1.65 core.
Justice League is playing at 1,277 screens in India but only in English as the film’s dubbed versions in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil could not get the Censor Board’s clearance on time. This has affected the movie’s business as the dubbed versions could have had a wider audience reach, thus raking in more money.
Over the past few years, audiences have become language agnostic and have come to appreciate different genres and good content. The experience offered by Hollywood movies has been appreciated by audiences across different demographics in India. This has led to more such films being dubbed into regional languages.
In the last 2-3 years, nearly 40 percent of English releases are dubbed in at least one local language, according to a FICCI-KPMG report.
Dubbing into different Indian languages helps to reach wider audience base, leading to increase in the contribution from dubbed versions to overall revenue collections in Indian market.
The Jungle Book, which is the highest grossing Hollywood movie in India, garnered more than half of its Indian box office revenues from non-English versions.
Movies from Hollywood are proving to be tough challengers for Indian films. Thor - Ragnarok continued to lead the box office in its second week with collections of Rs 2 crore taking its total to 42 crore. It is the highest grossing film in week two and the film’s popularity saw new releases like Qarib Qarib Single and Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana biting the dust.
In the last two weeks, Indian theatres have seen foreign films gaining more traction than Hindi films. Multi-starrer Ittefaq showed a weak trend despite there being no other major Bollywood release. The film grossed Rs 21.50 crore during its opening week and entered the second week with collections of Rs 75 lakh.
Other films like Qarib Qarib Single and Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana could make only Rs 12.25 core and Rs 6.50 crore, respectively for the first week.
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