A good article by Box office India on how to determine the success of films in India. Some lesser watched films make more money, but few films despite being watched by many more people, fail to recover its investment and is written off as box office failures.
Do read our star analysis on the same below after the article.
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The success of a movie is judged by the amount of business it does and in most of the world the collections tell which film has been watched by more people and this determines the success of the film. But in India sadly the actual collections do not tell which film has been watched by more people unless you thoroughly segregate the collections. In India its the admissions rather than collections which tell a more accurate story as collection range is so different between single screens and multiplexes.
An example of this is the first day collections of My Name Is Khan in a big single screen in Uttar Pradesh and a major multiplex in Uttar Pradesh.
My Name Is Khan collected 1,18,961 nett at Heer in Kanpur and the admissions here were 4,195. At Fun in Agra the same film collected 1,32,032 nett and the admissions here were 1,543. This shows that the single screen theatre had nearly three times the attendance but still a lower collection. What must be remembered here is that Fun in Agra has low ticket costs for a multiplex and Heer in Kanpur is one of the better single screens in India. Comparing with an upmarket multiplex then we have PVR Bangalore which had a collection of 5,15,084 nett for My Name Is Khan with admissions of 2,149.
If we compare PVR Bangalore with Heer in Kanpur its more than four times the collection but just half the admissions. This is the biggest indicator that collections do not show how many people are actually watching a particular film in India. It is likely that 5 crore nett business from single screens would give the same amount of admissions as 20 crore nett business from multiplexes.
This is also why that despite much lower collections a film like Tashan is watched by more people than outright multiplex grossers like Taare Zameen Par and Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na and a Veer is watched by more people than Super Hit films like Love Aaj Kal or Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani. It is also likely that a Wanted with less nett collections than a Love Aaj Kal is actually been watched by twice the number of people at the theatres.
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Stars and their films
- Aamir Khan – One of the reasons why Aamir has been so successful in the last few years is because both Ghajini and 3 Idiots have worked big time almost everywhere – metro’s, smaller cities, towns and villages. Not to mention Overseas. This Khan is truly miles ahead at the moment.
- Shahrukh Khan – Is the undisputed King overseas and probably on par with Aamir at plexes in India. But his films don’t really do so well at single screens. Can’t blame SRK really, as none of his last few films have held much appeal towards single screen audience. Ra 1 should do well though.
- Salman Khan – Struggles at multiplexes, but his action films – Wanted and Veer – are easily amongst the top-viewed films in India.
- Akshay Kumar – Currently enjoys a strong fan-following all over India, especially in the North. Akki films do well overseas too.
- Hrithik Roshan – Hrithik’s Dhoom 2 did excellent business both in India and overseas. Dhoom 2 and Krrish did well at single screens too. Could he be the future Aamir..?
What’s more important, viewership / number of tickets sold or boxoffice numbers? What’s the mystery behind Salman Khan’s poor run at multiplexes? Tell us, below in the comments section.
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