Bollywood’s first quarter report card: Big surprises, bigger disappointments

So far, 2022 has been full of surprises. The box office finally turned around, with many films making the cash registers ring. The first quarter’s highlight is still The Kashmir Files. The film, according to its director Vivek Agnihotri, has changed many things. When you consider that it was made with a budget of ₹15 crores, and has already surpassed ₹200 crore, it has achieved a profit of over 1000%.

“It’s one of the biggest successes in the overseas market, even compared to Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan films. It has opened up markets which nobody even knew about. It has revived single screen markets even in C and D centres. It is getting a huge demand in villages, so we are doing the screenings in balloon theatres, which are inflatable. We held one in Ladakh, and plan to organize more,” tells us the 48-year-old.

Trade expert Atul Mohan is elated with the revival of theatres: “After ruining our lives and box office for two years, we have some respite this first quarter. But talking in terms of box office, we can say it’s great. The numbers have been in the range of ₹375- 400 crores, which is almost 50 percent down from what each quarter used to be before in 2019 or 2018. We used to have a box office of ₹700- 750 crores on an average in three months. But now I would say it’s part and parcel of the process. We are just limping back to business.”

Another success story has been of filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi. Joining the ₹100 crore club, it was actor Alia Bhatt’s show all the way. But everything hasn’t been all hale and hearty. Actor Akshay Kumar and Kriti Sanon’s Bachchhan Paandey, among the most awaited releases of 2022 failed to meet expectations, and similar was the fate of Prabhas and Pooja Hedge’s Radhe Shyam.

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh comments, “You win some, you lose some. In the case of Radhe Shyam, it was just high expectations, it didn’t meet them. Bachchhan Paandey was eclipsed due to The Kashmir Files wave.”

But he is optimistic nevertheless. “The last two years have been very bad for the industry because of Covid. Prior to even The Kashmir Files though, we had Sooryavanshi and Pushpa: The Rise. RRR is creating havoc at the box office.”

Manoj Desai, executive director of G7 Multiplex and Maratha Mandir cinema, says the dependence on south films dubbed in Hindi should reduce. “Pushpa and RRR, which was zabardast, pe humein depend rehna padha. KGF 2 is coming up now, we have a lot of expectations from it. We hope Bollywood also makes good films, and we only depend on it. The Kashmir Files was also very good. Bachchhan Paandey, I don’t know what went wrong. It’s possible that The Kashmir Files wave hit it,” he says.