The big screen remains a big draw in the Indian entertainment segment, as the year gone by saw huge turnouts at movie halls, setting cash registers ringing for the industry. According to BookMyShow’s ‘Best of 2023 — Entertainment On A Spree’ report, a survey of 1,648,508 moviegoers found they watched at least six movies during the year with an average frequency of once every two months.
Blockbusters of the year included Jawan, Pathaan, Gadar 2: The Katha Continues, Jailer, Animal (Hindi), Leo, The Kerala Story, Adipurush (Hindi), Ponniyin Selvan: Part 2 (Tamil), Tiger 3, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani and OMG 2, according to the report, which curated data from January 1 to December 5.
Also read: Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan sets new records at the box office
“The Independence Day festive weekend, witnessing the largest attendance of 10.9 million audiences in Indian theatres and therefore tickets booked on BookMyShow,” it added. Nearly 2.8 million tickets were sold on a single day — August 13 — on the platform. Standalone single cinemas accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the ticket sales for blockbusters such as Gadar 2 and Jawan.
The report found that cinemagoers in urban centres like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Thiruvananthapuram preferred an unconventional timeline between 12 am and 6 am for movie outings. Nearly 37 per cent of the moviegoers also preferred shows on weekdays.
“Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru and Chennai were the leaders of the pack of metro cities — be it movies, live entertainment, or on-demand video entertainment with BookMyShow Stream — consistently topping the charts across all! 2023 saw non-metros and tier 2 (and beyond) markets really coming into their own as consumers of entertainment, growing tremendously, with Ahmedabad being the evergreen legend of the non-metro market, once again,” the report added.
Also read: Over 6 million moviegoers thronged cinemas on Friday: MAI
Nearly 13.5 million attended live during the year. “In 2023, 411,002 live entertainment enthusiasts travelled all the way outside of their home cities for experiences that they did not want to miss out on! While the top metros continued to brim with energy, it was the Tier II towns of Lucknow, Bhubaneswar and Nagpur amongst others that showcased ‘Top Tier’ energy for live event experiences, marking an extraordinary growth of 225 per cent in ticket sales from last year,” the BookMyShow report added.