Director SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus RRR has been on a record breaking spree since its release last Friday. The Jr NTR-Ram Charan periodic drama created a history on day one with ₹223 crore in worldwide gross box office collection (GBOC), the highest for any Indian movie. The movie has already crossed ₹600-crore mark in worldwide collections.
The Hindi version of the film alone has collected ₹107.59 crore in net box office collections in five days and now on its way to surpass the lifetime theatrical collection of Rajamouli’s ‘Baahubali: The Beginning’, the first film in the epic action ‘Baahubali’ series, which collected approximately ₹118 crore in the Hindi version.
It’s not just RRR that is setting the Indian box office on fire. Over half a dozen movies released during the first three months of the year have collected over ₹100-200 crore.
The year so far
Actor Allu Arjun’s Pushpa: The Rise which released in late December 2021, grossed over ₹300 crore worldwide, setting the stage for a spectacular theatrical business for the movies releasing in 2022.
According to trade reports, several other movies released during the January-March including Pawan Kalyan’s Bheemla Nayak (Telugu), Prabhas’ Radhe Shyam, and Puneet Rajkumar’s James (Kannada) have minted between ₹100-200 crore in box office collections.
Ajith Kumar’s Valimai (Tamil) entered the ₹200-crore club within 10 days of its release on February 24. The Boney Kapoor and Zee Studios produced venture is still continuing its theatrical run despite its digital premier on Zee5 OTT platform on March 25.
In Hindi, while Alia Bhatt-starrer Gangubai Kathiawadi grossed over ₹100 crore in box office collection, director Vivek Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files, a small budget movie, has collected over ₹235 crore globally.
Carnival Cinemas CEO Vishal Sawhney attributes the pent up demand and strong inflow of quality content as the reasons for the series of box office hits.
Echoing his views, Rajender Singh Jyala, Chief Programming Officer of INOX Leisure Limited, said: “In the last two years, people could not watch movies on big screens; so when the films are starting to release, people come in big numbers. Fortunately, the content pipeline is also very good and that’s why film after film we are seeing this kind of numbers.”
Upcoming films
Industry players are on a jubilant mode as a series of big Bollywood and regional movies is waiting to hit the big screens in the coming weeks including Vijay’s Beast (Tamil), Yash’s much-anticipated K.G.F: Chapter 2 and Shahid Kapoor’s Jersey (Hindi).
“From the exhibition perspective, the next 6 months is going to be fantastic, the kind of content that we will see both from regional languages and Hindi is going to be huge,” Carnival Cinemas Sawhney said.
“If there are no further waves or lockdowns, this financial year will be the biggest year for the Indian film industry with the kind of line up we have,” Inox Leisure’s Jyala said.