Spider-Man outpaces Sooryavanshi at box office, becomes second biggest Hollywood opener

Spider-Man: No Way Home has reported higher box office collections than Akshay Kumar’s Sooryavanshi for the opening day’s show, according to film trade analysts. The Bollywood blockbuster had released during the Diwali holidays.

“Spider-Man: No Way Home has collected Rs 40 crore gross on its first day, which is extraordinary business, especially because a big state like Maharashtra is still operating at 50 percent capacity limitation in theatres,” Shailesh Kapoor, CEO, Ormax Media, a media consulting firm, told Moneycontrol.

Sooryavanshi hit theatres on November 5 and collected Rs 26.5 crore net on its opening day whereas Spider-Man: No Way Home has garnered Rs 35 crore on day one, according to film trade experts.

Gross box office collection of a film is revenue of a movie from tickets and net collection is the amount which comes after deducting tax by state governments.

The sequel to 2017 release Spider-Man: Homecoming has become the second biggest Hollywood opener in India after Avengers: Endgame, which got Rs 53.5 crore on its first day of release.

“In terms of lifetime box office (collections), the film should do about Rs 150-175 crore of collections. Opening weekend will be Rs 80-85 odd crore. We have got (Ranveer Singh-starrer) 83 coming next (weekend) which is a large-ticket Hindi film. So, Hindi collections of Spider-Man: No Way Home will see some negative impact next week onwards because of 83’s release (on December 24),” said analyst Karan Taurani, senior vice-president and research analyst, media, Elara Capital.

He added that around 25-30 percent of the numbers will be from the version dubbed into Hindi and the rest will be regional and English put together.

While Spider-Man: No Way Home is performing well across India, it is seeing more traction in southern markets.

“The film’s business in south India is better than Avengers: Infinity War and that is the reason for this delta push. If you look at other markets, Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, they have reported inline performance with Avengers: Infinity War,” said Taurani.

According to analysts, multiplexes will benefit more versus single screens from the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home.

“It is a big benefit for multiplexes versus single screens because the share of multiplexes at the box office for Hindi content is close to 70-75 percent and for regional it is 35-40-odd percent. When it comes to Hollywood, the share of multiplexes can go as high as 85-90 percent. So multiplexes tend to gain more when Hollywood films do well. Also, there is a big benefit on ticket prices because most of the films are also made for 3D experiences so that enhances the average ticket price (ATP),” noted Taurani.

Ormax’s Kapoor added that multiplexes have done very well at high ticket rates and at 70-100 percent occupancy for Spider-Man: No Way Home. Single screens have also been good at 50-80 percent capacity countrywide, he said.

In terms of advance bookings, PVR sold over 1 lakh tickets on the first day of advance booking and INOX sold 1.5 lakh tickets in the first 24 hours of opening advances.

Overall, experts pointed out that the strong showing by Spider-Man: No Way Home will spell good news for theatres.

“Hollywood contributes 10 percent to the overall India box office. It has been growing at a slightly faster pace than regional and Hindi due to the additional lever of dubbed content. Back in the day (8-10 years back), Hollywood films would do 85-90 percent of business from English language and 10-15 percent would be from Hindi and other regional languages dubbed. But now there is a big shift in terms of revenue contribution,” said Taurani.

Kapoor added that the huge business of Spider-Man: No Way Home “tells us that the cinema medium and the exhibition sector has managed to navigate COVID without any long-term harm whatsoever”.