'Drishyam 2' eyes entry into Rs 200-cr club, spells cheer for Bollywood

Hindi movie Drishyam 2 has collected more than Rs 185 crore in net at the box office in its three-week run so far and is set to breach the Rs 200-crore mark this week, which will make it the fourth Bollywood film to do so in an otherwise dampener of a year for the Hindi film industry.  

The Ajay Devgn-starrer collected more than Rs 18 crore on its third weekend of December 3-4, pushing its total net collection so far to Rs 186.77 crore, according to trade portal Bollywood Hungama. The gross figures are likely to be higher. 

A remake of the Malayalam movies of the same name (Drishyam 1 & 2) starring Mohanlal, the film is a sequel to the 2015 movie starring Devgn in the lead. It is produced by Reliance Industries’ Viacom18 Studios and Panorama Studios and distributed by Yash Raj Films. Actors Tabu, Shriya Saran, and Akshaye Khanna also play lead roles in the film directed by Abhishek Pathak. 

Posting a ‘buy’ rating for stocks of multiplexes PVR and INOX, Nuvama Institutional Equities had said in a note that it expects multiplex stocks to do well in the near term due to strong box office collections for Drishyam 2. “This raises hopes for a better Q3FY22 after Hindi box office’s slow performance in Q2FY23. The dry run of Initial part of Q3 pauses. Pipeline of movies is decent in the coming months also. This rejuvenates the Hindi film industry, which was going through turbulent times after a string of failures,” according to Executive Director Abneesh Roy of the brokerage firm.  

The highest Hindi grossers this year so far are Brahmastra (Rs 306 crore), The Kashmir Files (Rs 292 crore) and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (Rs 219 crore), according to media consultancy firm Ormax Media. The top three grossers in domestic box office collection across the languages they have been released in this year so far are Kannada’s KGF: Chapter 2 (Rs 970 cr), Telugu’s RRR (Rs 869 crore) and Kannada’s Kantara (Rs 346 crore), according to Ormax data. 

Bollywood usually contributes 40-45% to India’s domestic gross box office collections.  But the Hindi film industry has had a poor showing this year, accounting for 33 per cent of the Rs 9,024 crore cumulative box office collection in India during January-October 2022, according to Ormax Media’s ‘The India Box Office Report’. Even within that, more than a third of it came from Hindi-dubbed versions of Telugu, Tamil & Kannada language films.  

“After a subdued Q2, Q3 is turning out well with a huge lineup of movies covering all genres. Movies like Uunchai (starring Amitabh Bachchan) have given the push to family-oriented movies and we expect this phenomenon to continue,” Roy said in the note. But the real test will be whether the trend can sustain as the Hindi box office has witnessed false starts earlier as well, Roy had added in his note. 

The next year has superstars Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan lining up three and two big films, respectively. Akshay Kumar, who is reeling from back-to-back flops, and Ajay Devgn also have a host of releases in 2023. There’s also Ranveer Singh & Alia Bhatt’s ‘Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani’ and Kartik Aaryan’s ‘Shehzada’.  

Also read: 'Drishyam 2' box office collection: Ajay Devgn film to enter Rs 200 crore club soon

Also read: 'Drishyam 2' box office collection: Ajay Devgn film inches closer to Rs 250 cr-mark globally