Box Office: Silence Before The Big Storm?

As we brace up for Box Office 2016: 2.0 with biggest of the biggest releases to follow, ticket counters right now are experiencing a weird silence. While first half of the year was inoffensively dominated by Hollywood releases, here we are with that time of the year where it’s going to be Bollywood all the way. However, as we anticipate a box office hurricane next week with Sultan opening up to audiences, this week in particular has been dismal in terms of minting money.

While Independence Day: Resurgence was way ahead of Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Raman Raghav 2.0’ other Hindi releases were absolutely dismal to say the least. The sci-fi Hollywood movie after having impressively opened to a 15 crores weekend, ended its first week tally at 24.10 crores. The film remained the top choice for majority of the audience and strictly affected Raman Raghav’s possible growth, since both films appealed to the urban audiences.

#IndependenceDayResurgence Fri 4.70 cr, Sat 5.80 cr, Sun 6.40 cr, Mon 2.10 cr, Tue 1.90 cr, Wed 1.70 cr, Thu 1.50 cr. Total: ₹ 24.10 cr nett

— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) July 1, 2016

Raman Raghav 2.0 on the other hand, despite a unanimously propagated positive word of mouth couldn’t really match the expectations it had attached to itself. The film had a pretty average opening of 4 crores in the weekend and crashed subsequently on weekdays. Having garnered a total of 6 crores in its first week, it is unlikely the film will do anything beyond 7 crores.

The other prominent release of the week in the likes of Pulkit Samrat and Yami Gautam’s Junooniyat was a disaster too. The film having gone through an extremely poor promotional campaign could only garner in the range of 2-3 crores and is declared a flop. Finding Dory even in its second week didn’t fail to lose out on numbers and reached a respectable 15 crores.

Udta Punjab too after a relatively better box office fate is on its descend and is looking to end its journey under the 60 crore mark. Considering the cost and restricted appeal of the film, the figure shouldn’t bother its distributors. First half of the year is over and the only two films to have grossed over 100 crores are Akshay Kumar’s Airlift and Housefull 3.  

While the trade hasn’t been on the plus side in the last two weeks, it is to be closely observed that it is only the silence before the storm. When Salman Khan’s Sultan will hit theaters on Wednesday (Eid), trade analysts are predicting some big records going to the shatters. Also, with weeks packed with biggies to follow, the game is only going to grow more exciting!