The recent verdict of releasing Sooryavanshi exclusively in theaters after postponing the release date for 18 months has been well worth it. Against all odds, people flocked to see this film on its opening weekend – bringing in $26.29 million dollars at the box office on Friday – just one day after Diwali celebrations. This is equivalent to about 35 crore rupees from before when movies were released simultaneously in theaters and made good profits without doing well initially from the pandemic era we are now living through.
No one knew for sure how successful Sooryavanshi would become, considering the uncertainty surrounding it given its release date. On one hand people were excited to watch an epic movie, while others feared they wouldn’t come in droves due to various reasons that had occurred in the past 18 months and caused them all to stay at home instead. And so predictions ranged between Rs. 20-25 crores but then came in higher than expected.
As we all know, Diwali is a time for celebration – along with economic gain. There are also many new releases that coincide with the festivities because they believe that profits will be higher during this time; there’s no hard evidence supporting this claim though. Such Indian blockbusters always seem to do better than international ones come a festival time here in India so it makes sense why some filmmakers don’t release them then if they want international appeal because there isn’t much global movie watching happening at that time of year from October onwards.
Another thing worth noting about recent years though is the change in the title styles which reflects how Hindi cinema has grown – when names like Sanju or Tanu Weds Manu were released they weren’t really titles either, they were just preceded by Dharma followed by two words as in Babumoshai Bandookbaaz or Freaky Ali (even Tarr Se Niga Intezaar).
Note: All collections are ordered according to production and distribution sources.
