The upcoming Akshay Kumar action thriller Bellbottom, which was supposed to reopen cinema theaters after a long break, has not been doing well at all. Actually, the movie started off poorly during its opening week even though it got good reviews. It is also worth noting that people had high expectations for what they thought would happen when the movie was released again – namely that there would be an increase in profits from ticket sales, but these expectations were quickly dashed when revenue actually went down on Friday of the movie’s debut weekend.
As per reports, €2.60 crore was collected on Day 2 of its opening weekend while it collected Rs. 2.75 crore on Day 1, bringing the total to approximately €5.35 crore ($7248068). However there were indications that collections were lower than what they could have been at many major chain theatres due to general unawareness around the film’s release date and because of the looming threat of Covid-19 which restricted everything from people going out for movies in theaters or watching them online (which is illegal).
This led many cinemas worldwide to cancel screenings leading up to Bellbottom’s Opening Weekend – a decision which also negatively impacted this movie’s revenue streams both domestically as well as abroad since it did not release in key markets such as Maharashtra which would typically contribute about €30% towards an average films revenue streams.
Bellbottom currently faces an uphill battle with ticket sales and revenues, but if States like Uttar Pradesh allow theaters to open up on Sundays, chances are that the film’s earnings will increase. With people having holidays all weekend long- Onam (a Hindu festival) falls this Saturday and Raksha Bandhan (a traditional Indian festival) falls Sunday – there is no telling what kind of impact these festivities might have on the movie. The biggest plus for Bell Bottom lies in its quality; hopefully word-of-mouth spreads about how great it is which would result in a spike in ticket sales later down the road. As of now, estimates put BellBottom’s opening week grossing somewhere around Rs 13 Cr (slightly over $2 million).
Day 1
PVR – Rs. 75 lakhs
INOX – Rs. 45 lakhs
Cinepolis – Rs. 30 lakhs
Total – Rs 1.50 cr.
Day 2
PVR – Rs. 75 lakhs
INOX – Rs. 50 lakhs
Cinepolis – Rs. 35 lakhs
Total – Rs 1.60 cr.
