In India, where the audience thrives on Bollywood films, Hollywood is proving to be a tough challenge for the Indian film industry. So far, “Thor: Ragnarok” continues to lead the Indian box office in its second week, collecting around Rs2 crore, taking its total to Rs42 crore in India alone.
Becoming the highest grossing film in week two, since its release, new Indian releases like “Qarib Qarib Single” and “Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana” are just biting the dust.
In the past two weeks, Indian cinema halls have seen foreign films gaining more traction than Hindi ones.
Sidharth Malhotra, Akshaye Khanna and Sonakshi Sinha starrer “Ittefaq” has showed a weak trend despite no other major Bollywood releases. The film grossed Rs21.50 crore during its opening week and entered the week two with a collection of only Rs 75 lakh.
Other films like “Qarib Qarib Single” and “Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana” were able to collect only Rs 12.25 core and Rs 6.50 crore, respectively during its first week.
Hollywood superheroes currently rule over the Indian box office, where “Justice League” takes the top spot, fighting off its Bollywood competitors like “Aksar 2” and Vidya Balan’s “Tumhari Sulu.”
The new offering from the DC Universe has minted Rs5.50 crore as against to Rs2.65 crore earned by “Tumhari Sulu” and Rs75 lakh by “Aksar 2” on its opening day.
With very little competition from Bollywood and the fading interest for previous releases like “Golmaal Again,” “Justice League” has soared during the last two days with its revenue touching Rs 11.50 crore.
On the other hand, “Tumahari Sulu” could only make Rs6.90 crore despite a 60% growth on second day. “Aksar 2” failed to make its mark at the box office and ended up grossing only Rs1.65 core.
“Justice League” is currently screening at 1,277 halls in India though only in English, because the film’s dubbed versions in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil could not receive the Censor Board’s clearance on time. This has affected the film’s business as the dubbed versions could grasp a wider audience, thus raking in more money.
Over the past few years, audiences have become language agnostic, and have come to appreciate different genres and good content. The experience offered by Hollywood films has been appreciated by audiences across different demographics in India. This has led to more such films being dubbed into regional languages.
In the last 2-3 years, nearly 40% of English releases were dubbed in at least one local language, according to a FICCI-KPMG report.
Dubbing foreign films into different Indian languages help reach a wider audience base. This leads to an increase in the contribution from dubbed versions to overall revenue collections in the Indian market.
“The Jungle Book,” which is the highest grossing Hollywood film in India, had garnered more than half of its Indian box office revenues from non-English versions.
