The Indian box office could come alive in the second half of the current calendar year following an end to the two-month-long election season. A string of big-budget movies are slated for release in the June-August period across languages, with at least Rs 2,000-3,000-crore riding on these movies, film distributors, producers and trade analysts that FE spoke to said.The festive season will see more big movies lined up to cash in on the mood, including the sequel to 2007’s Life in a Metro called Metro…in Dino, slated for release in November and the third instalment in the Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise, scheduled to hit theatres on October 31.
If movie-goers do make their way back into cinemas in the next couple of months, it will help partially wipe out a dull first half, which saw sluggish business across languages. Barring Fighter, starring Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone, and Shaitaan, featuring R Madhavan and Ajay Devgn, which crossed Rs100 crore in earnings, most Hindi movies underperformed at the box office in the first half, Pulkit Chawla, research analyst at Mumbai-based brokerage Emkay Global said.The Hollywood pipeline was weak too, he said, due to limited releases. And among regional films, Telugu movies HanuMan and Guntur Kaaram as well as Malayalam film Manjummel Boys were the only notable standouts, doing business in excess of Rs 100 crore in the first half of the year.“
The first half of the year was marked by the elections, a strong heat wave and a lack of big releases which hurt business at the box office,” Karan Taurani, senior vice-president, research at brokerage Elara Capital, said. Among the most-anticipated films in the second half include Kalki 2898 AD, featuring Prabhas, Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan as well as Kartik-Aaryan-starrer Chandu Champion, which will release in June and are Hindi movies. Kamal Haasan’s Indian 2, a Tamil-language film will release in July, and Pushpa 2: The Rule, the sequel to 2021’s Pushpa: The Rise, a Telugu film starring Allu Arjun, will release in August. And so will the third instalment in the Singham franchise, starring Ajay Devgn and directed by Rohit Shetty, called Singham Returns, which will also release in August.
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“The second half of the year is definitely better than the first half from a content perspective. You have franchise-led films, family entertainers, comedies, everything that should get audiences into theatres,” says Rahul Puri, MD, Mukta Arts and Mukta A2 Cinemas.Puri says that he sees limited impact of the ongoing T20 World Cup on the movie business. “While the India matches will be of interest to viewers and are scheduled at 8 pm local time, the T20 World Cup is a month-long tournament with many more matches. I don’t think it will hinder people from watching movies,” he says.
From: financialexpress
Financial News
