‘A’ (audience), ‘B’ (budget), ‘C’ (content) were the three major factors that led the movie industry this year

While the audience came back to the movie halls after the pandemic, some small-budget movies delivered unprecedented returns, but a few big-budgeted vanished from the audience’s attention. It was content that played the key role in making a movie hit or flop.

Hindi films (including those dubbed from other languages) made a net box office collection (NBOC) of around ₹2,975 crore (till December 21). Nearly 30.77 per cent (₹915.71 crore) of this collection was from the movies dubbed from south Indian languages. In fact, 18 per cent (₹534 crore) of NBOC was from movies dubbed from Kannada language.

Audience

Exhibition industry witnessed good footfalls for the cinema halls for some of the releases. The ticket booking platform BookMyShow, which announced ‘Best of 2022’ highlights recently, said it sold 2.14 million tickets for the movie KGF - Chapter 2 in a single day on April 14. In fact, KGF - Chapter 2 emerged as the highest grosser with ₹434.70 crore in Hindi alone. The overall collection of the movie from all the languages put together crossed ₹1,200 crore.

According to the data available on Bollywood Hungama, the NBOC of five movies crossed ₹200 crore in Hindi. They are: KGF - Chapter 2, RRR, Brahmastra, The Kashmir Files, and Drishyam 2.

Recently, Hombale Films announced that the total footfall for its movie Kantara crossed 1 crore in Kannada alone overtaking the footfalls of KGF - Chapter 2 (one more production from Hombale Films) in Kannada.

Other movies such as RRR, The Kashmir Files, and Ponniyin Selvan: Part-1 brought the audience back to the theatres/multiplexes.

Budget

While the much-expected big budget movies tanked at the box office, small budget movies went on to gain during the year. Made with a budget of around ₹15 crore, the Kannada movie Kantara went on to gross around ₹400 crore in the languages it was released. Hindi version of this movie helped it register a NBOC of around ₹79 crore.

The Kashmir Files, which was produced with a budget of around ₹15 crore, earned over ₹252 crore in the box office.

Karthikeya 2, another small budget movie originally made in Telugu, earned more than ₹30 crore in Hindi alone.

However, the big budget movies such as Aamir Khan starer Laal Singh Chaddha, and Vijaya Devarakonda starer Liger failed to impress audience at the box office.

Content

Whether it was the pure local content in Kantara, or the story based on Chola dynasty in Ponniyin Selvan, or the historical drama in RRR, audience liked them all. While the period action drama like KGF - Chapter 2 and the remake of Malayalam movie Drishyam 2 were also hit with the audience. Animal lovers experienced the emotional journey with their pets in the Kananda movie 777 Charlie, which was based on the journey and bonding between a dog and a person.

Remakes such as Drishyam 2 and Vikram Vedha, and sequel-based movies such as KGF, Drishyam, Brahmastra, and Ponniyin Selvan were in demand among the audience.

Stars

Movies of some major movie stars such as Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar failed to attract the attention of the audience, actors such as Yash and Rishabh Shetty, NTR Jr and Ram Charan (RRR) made entry to the pan-India movie scenario with their hits such as KGF - Chapter 2 and Kantara and RRR, respectively.

Ajay Devgn, who was part of hit movies such as Gangubai Kathiawadi and RRR, found success in Drishyam 2 where he was the lead character. However, some other movies of Devgn failed to get viewers’ attention.

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