A new movie titled Spider-Man: No Way Home made history at the box office as it raised around Rs. 33 to 35 crores on its first day. It did so despite the fact that it was released on a non-traditional workday, avoiding Fridays which is often used for releases instead. It wasn’t just high-priced tickets that brought in bidders but rather lower prices helped attract viewers too.
The film did extremely well all across India and got most of its revenue from PVR, Inox, and Cinépolis which are the top three theater chains in Indian theaters – making up over 60% of total revenue sold per theater. This success will likely continue into next week when the film ends up earning about Rs 50 crore within 4 days time.
Spider-Man has once again won the hearts of its Indian fans. Thanks to soaring popularity and mesmerizing characters, people were determined to see it at least one time before it is taken off from theatres after just six weeks in New Delhi alone. Marvel films are known for building such strong connections that even while Avengers: End Game was released earlier this year (which happened before Spider-man), Hollywood films coming out now can’t make up ground against Spider-Man. It amassed 100% occupancy in 11 Imax screens India has at one go, making it the first blockbuster to do so since the release of Avengers: End Game.
What makes this moment so grand isn’t just that Sooryavanshi has brought in Rs. 26.50 crore during a national holiday, but that Spiderman – one of the most anticipated films of the year – was released on a non-holiday Thursday and also outperformed every other release from last year including Antim and SMJ2 to collect over Rs. 45 crores by Friday mornings; despite its measly opening day number being lower than what Antim’s lifetime collection has been (38.5 crores).
This is an unprecedented turn for Hindi cinema as not one single film aside from Sooryavanshi made it past 30 million in this period where we’ve seen many huge Bollywood films struggle to bring audiences out into theaters; indicating how there may be more hope for Indian film industries yet if these trends persist.
