Two big-ticket Hindi movie releases – Aamir Khan-starrer Laal Singh Chaddha and Akshay Kumar-starrer Raksha Bandhan – taking off to a slow start comes as a dampener for multiplexes which saw a blockbuster April-June quarter driven by a spate of superhits, mostly from the south Indian film industry, as well as higher ticket prices.
Laal Singh Chaddha sold approximately 57,000 tickets for the opening day, while Raksha Bandhan 35,000 tickets sold for Day 1 at the box office, according to Bollywood Hungama. “We estimate Laal Singh Chaddha to have a stronger opening with Rs 16 crore, and a lifetime collection of Rs 150 crore- Rs 160 crore. On the other hand, Raksha Bandhan is estimated to open with Rs 9 crore on day one and may end up reporting a lifetime collection of Rs 80 crore - Rs 90 crore,” according to a note by Karan Taurani, Senior Vice President at Elara Capital.
Listed multiplex chains PVR Limited and INOX Leisure reported a combined record Rs 883 crore quarterly net box office collections in April-June 2022. That’s a 19 per cent jump from the combined Rs 743 crore the two multiplexes made through net box office collections in April-June 2019.
FY20 numbers are taken as the benchmark for comparison as the pandemic affected the movie exhibition business badly.
Besides, it was the highest-ever quarterly net box office collections for both PVR Limited (Rs 530 crore) and INOX Leisure (Rs 353 crore), aided by the twin delights of a Covid 19-free quarter and back-to-back blockbusters such as RRR and KGF: Chapter 2, mostly from the South.
For instance, KGF: Chapter 2 (across the languages it was released in) alone accounted for Rs 121.4 crore of PVR’s Rs 530 crore net box office collection, making the Kannada film PVR’s all-time highest grosser. Other films which boosted the multiplex chain’s revenues include RRR (all languages, Rs 93.7 crore), Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (Hindi, Rs 47.4 crore), Dr Strange (English, Rs 45.8 crore) and Vikram (Tamil, Rs 26 crore), according to figures from its investors’ presentation.
The strong recovery from the pandemic spelt cheer for the chains, which are in the midst of a merger, after extended periods of lockdowns of the past two years and the OTT threat assaulted their finances. PVR’s average ticket price (ATP) grew 23 per cent to Rs 250 in Q1FY23, while INOX’s ATP rose 16 per cent to Rs 229, compared to Q1FY20, on account of ticket price relaxations in regional markets.
But the ongoing July-September quarter may not be as much of a hit for the multiplex chains with Hindi films failing at the box office, experts point out. “We maintain that Hindi Box Office is slated to decline 22% (vs pre COVID levels) in Q2FY23, as content has been below par so far and we are already the end of first half of the quarter, with no film reporting a positive surprise. We expect pressure on metrics like Average Ticket Price and Spend Per Head, which have reported a sharp growth versus pre-Covid levels (15-25 per cent higher), backed by large scale content in non-Hindi genres,” according to another note by Elara Capital’s Taurani.
Hindi dominates the box office collection of these listed multiplex chains. While the Hindi-dubbed versions of epic-scale south Indian films and a few surprise straight Hindi hits like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 boosted their revenues in the April-June quarter, three films headlined by big stars such as Ranbir Kapoor’s Shamshera, Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha and Akshay Kumar’s Raksha Bandhan failed to cause a bang at the theatres. The latter two, though, experts say, may see improved footfalls over the weekend. The next big-ticket Hindi release in this quarter is the Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt-Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva on September 9, 2022.
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