Adipurush’s opening box office collection projections show Prabhas is back

• The box office collection of Prabhas’ last two releases, Saaho and Radhe Shyam, were much below expectations.
  
• If it’s able to manage a good opening, Adipurush may be able to breach the ₹350-crore lifetime earnings mark, says Elara Capital.
  
• Small and medium budget films continue to struggle, as their success in North and South circuits has dropped sharply.
  
• The first quarter of FY24 has gotten off to a slow start, with no surprises except for The Kerala Story and Hollywood movie, Fast X.

After an average performance of his last two movies, South superstar Prabhas might see a good run at the box office with his upcoming release Adipurush, say analysts.

The movie, based on the mythological epic Ramayana, is expected to bring in opening day collections of ₹50-60 crore for the dubbed versions. The Hindi original is also expected to clock in ₹20 crore, predicts a research report by Elara Capital.

As per media reports, its advance bookings have been creating buzz, especially in overseas markets like Canada and Australia.

If it’s able to manage a good opening, this big budget movie will be able to breach the ₹350- crore lifetime earnings mark – unlike Prabhas’ earlier movies Saaho and Radhe Shyam whose collections at ₹280 crore and ₹150 crore, respectively, were way below expectations

“The film may surpass our estimates based on good content and word-of-mouth. Ticket prices are expected to be premium, around 20% higher than the average ticket prices on a pan-India level,” says Karan Taurani and Rounak Roy of Elara Capital.

Adipurush will be released across India on June 16 in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. It also stars Saif Ali Khan and Kriti Sanon, and is directed by Om Raut who had delivered the superhit movie, Tanaji.

Small budget films not bringing in the moolah

In spite of a few recent hits like Pathaan, The Kerala Story, Kantara and more, movie theatres have been struggling to bring back footfalls to match the pre-Covid levels. “Small and medium budget films continue to struggle as frequency of content becoming successful has dropped sharply in the North and South circuits,” the research report from Elara, which tracks PVR, says.

Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan's latest release Zara Hatke Zara Bachke has minted ₹37.4 crore in its first week, according to trade analyst Taran Adarsh. The movie, directed by Laxman Utekar, saw a decent opening, garnering ₹5.49 crore on the first day of its release.

In spite of the positive surprise that the movie delivered, Elara believes that the momentum was driven by the Buy-One-Get-One-Free (BOGO) offer. It reduces distributor-producer share to approximately 30% from 50% earlier.

“It makes film production economics unviable; while it is a good promotional activity to propel audiences back into the cinema halls to drive frequency, good and consistent content is the only big driver for improved occupancy levels,” say Taurani and Roy in their note.

A slow start to FY24

The first quarter of FY24 has gotten off to a slow start in terms of box office, with no surprises except for The Kerala Story and Hollywood movie, Fast X. Hindi film box office collections for the first quarter are expected to be 20% lower than what they were pre-Covid. As compared to the same quarter last year, the drop is expected to be sharper at 30%, the research firm predicts.

For context, the same time last year had hit movies like Rajamouli’s RRR, Karthik Aryan’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and Yash’s KGF 2.

The second quarter of FY24 is expected to see many big movie releases like Karthik Aryan’s Satyaprem, Sunny Deol’s Gadar 2, Ranveer Singh’s Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani, Akshay Kumar’s OMG 2, Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal and Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan.

“Q2FY24 may be the best quarter even if half of these films report a healthy box office collection. Woes persist for exhibitors as Hindi content recovery is important to drive advertising growth, which remains under pressure,” the Elara report opines.

The number of Hindi films lined up for release however remains lower than pre-Covid levels — by 30-35%.