Despite Bollywood drought, India’s box office collection crosses Rs 10,000 crore in 2022

Despite what can be called a terrible year for India's much-vaunted Hindi film industry, the cumulative domestic box office collection has crossed a whopping Rs 10,000 crore mark in 2022, making it the second-best year after 2019.

This comes against the backdrop of two consecutive years of lacklustre performance owing to the Covid pandemic and the closure of Indian theatres. In fact, 2022's domestic gross box office collections have already surpassed the 2018 level of Rs 9,810 crore.

According to consultancy firm Ormax Media’s ‘The India Box Office Report: November 2022’ published on Monday, the cumulative box office for January-October 2022 stands at Rs 9,751 crore. The report highlighted that films releasing in December need to gross at least Rs 1,197 crore for 2022 to become the best-ever year at the domestic box office, in terms of gross collections. “With the success of Avatar: The Way Of Water, the Rs 10,000 crore mark has already been achieved in 2022, at the time of publishing this report,” it said.

The best year so far has been 2019 with a gross domestic box office collection of Rs 10,948 crore. Films released in 2018 raked in Rs 9,810 crore, according to the firm.

Although November was a dull month at the domestic Indian box office with a collection of just Rs 711 crore – the lowest since July 2022 -- Hindi’s Drishyam 2 kept the cash registers ringing. The film’s expected lifetime gross earnings of Rs 280 crore makes it a rare month where a Hindi filmis leading the way at a time when a string of Hindi films have been bombing at the box office. The film, however, is a remake of the Malayalam film of the same name starring Mohanlal.

The Ajay Devgn-starrer is expected to the become the eight highest grosser this year, sandwiched between Vikram’s Rs 284 crore and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2’s Rs 219 crore collections. The Kannada blockbuster hit KGF: Chapter 2 holds the top position with Rs 970 crore.

“This is mainly on account of content from the south. Collections of movies such as RRR, KGF: Chapter 2 and Kantara increased and got recognition up north as well. Up to the Bahubali films and Pushpa: The Rise, there was no theatrical market for south Indian movies in the north. Once the Hindi belt opened up, these movies are doing phenomenally well up north. The content of other language movies has actually driven audience to see them in theatres,” NV Capital Founding Partner Vivek Menon had told Business Today earlier.

Drishyam 2’s success also takes up Bollywood’s contribution to the overall box office to 35 per cent from 33% see last month. This, however, is well below the 44% contribution of Hindi language to the 2019 domestic box office, the report noted. 

Listed multiplex chains PVR and INOX have seen footfalls of 83.8 million and 41 million, respectively, during the nine-month period from January to September 2022. That puts their footfalls at about 68.4 per cent and 75.6 per cent, respectively, of the same period in 2019.  

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