On the heels of Akshay Kumar-starrer Sooryavanshi ’s successful run at the box office, cinemas have struck gold with the Hollywood flick Spider-Man: No Way Home .

According to estimates by the Multiplex Association of India (MAI), cinemas in the country had chalked up advance bookings of ₹47.5 crore by Wednesday night in terms of gross box office revenues.

The film was released on Thursday with certain cinema chains starting off as early as 4 a.m.

MAI president Kamal Gianchandani told BusinessLine that this was the second highest advance ticket sales clocked by any movie in the country, so far. This was also the single busiest advance ticket sales for cinemas in the pandemic times, he added.

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Projected earnings

By the early trends in advance booking, the Hollywood flick is expected to earn over ₹300 crore at the Indian box office in terms of lifetime collections, and points to a sharp recovery in box office collections, Gianchandani added.

“I would say this indicates that cinemas are back and are here to stay. We have a slew of films releasing week after week this winter and the upcoming summer, and strong blockbuster potentials across languages. We expect business to bounce back strongly to pre-Covid levels by the January-March quarter. In fact, we expect to see growth over pre-pandemic levels in terms of occupancy and average ticket sales by the fourth quarter,” he said.

Cinema players expect the Hollywood flick to set a new box office record.

Alok Tandon, Chief Executive Officer, Inox Leisure, said the cinema chain had bookings of more than two lakh tickets for the first day of the movie and expects the count to go up by the end of the day.

“Fans across India have been waiting with anticipation to watch the third part of the Spider-Man franchise. We are extremely excited to see the response from our guests since the early morning shows, not just in the metros, but across the country. We are confident that Spider-man: No Way Home 's release in India will create history as the biggest release since pandemic and will also be one of the best performing Hollywood movies ever. What we are seeing today underlines the significance of cinema and theatrical runs in the Indian film ecosystem,” Tandon said.

Around the corner

Some of the key movies slated for release include Pushpa: The Rise (Telugu) on Friday, the Matrix Resurrections on December 22, 83 on December 24, and Jersey and the King’s Man on December 31.

January is set to see the release of movies such as SS Rajamouli’s RRR , Bheemala Nayak (Telugu), Valimai (Tamil), Radhe Shyam (Telugu), besides Yash Raj Films’ Prithiviraj and Attack .

Ashish Saksena, COO – Cinemas, BookMyShow, said, “ Spider-Man has set the cash registers ringing … with one million tickets sold in advance since sales opened for the movie pan-India, across cinema chains.

“After a stellar start to the recovery cycle in November, Spider-Man has set the tone for December and we expect another massive surge in bookings during the upcoming weekend,” he added.

 

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