The two industry bodies also revealed that the weekend drew over 21 million to theatres across the country, which is the highest combined admissions record in the last 10 years.
The box office collections were driven largely by films like Rajinikanth’s Jailer, Sunny Deol’s Gadar 2, Akshay Kumar and Pankaj Tripathi’s OMG 2 and Chiranjeevi’s Bhola Shankar.
According to Sacnilk, Jailer has raked in over ₹150 crore in net box office collection till Sunday while Gadar 2’s three-day net domestic box office collec tions were over ₹134 crore. OMG 2 and Bhola Shankar’s net collections stood at over ₹43 crore and ₹26 crore, respectively. Jailer released on August 10 while Gadar 2, OMG 2 and Bhola Shankar released on August 11.
PGI president Shibasish Sarkar said the turnout at theatres has infused new energy into the film industry.“Audiences are responding in numbers we have not seen for a very long time; even the early morning shows are getting sold out.This weekend has been a wonderful experience for people who love mainstream Indian films,” he added.MAI president Kamal Gianchandani said the footfalls and gross box office collections have set new records in the film industry. “This whole debate that audience behaviour has changed and the audiences have been weaned away from cinemas to streaming platforms has clearly proven to be incorrect,” Gianchandani said.
He said that the long weekend, coupled with the aggressive push by the studios in marketing the films, has played a key role in increasing footfalls. “The cinema exhibition industry has benefited greatly in the last three days. Multiplexes and single screens have operated at 70% occupancy in the last few days, irrespective of which part of the country they are situated in,” Gianchandani said.
He is also confident that the after-effects of the pandemic are over and admissions will grow further as filmmakers have lined up an aggressive content slate for the second half of the year.
During the company’s Q1 earnings call, PVR Inox MD Ajay Bijli said the multiplex chain has been seeing a consistent month-on-month increase in collections.
“Volatility in Hindi film performance has reduced, and we have seen a QoQ improvement in average collection of Hindi films as well,” he said.
