Dharma Production’s first release of the year Kesari did cross the ₹100 crore mark (at ₹143.95 crore net) but with a budget of ₹126 crore, that’s a slim profit margin.
The multi-starrer Kalank which released last month, was made at a reported budget of ₹137 crore and earned ₹ 78.8 crore net. The third release from Karan Johar’s stable was arguably one of the most touted films of the year: the sequel to 2012’s Student of the Year (SOTY). The film that launched the careers of its star cast. Johar thought to replicate the brouhaha with action star Tiger Shroff, and newcomers Tara Sutaria and Ananya Panday. Though SOTY2 opened at a respectable ₹11.75 crore net, the film has in five days collected an average of ₹47.85 crore net.
This is against a reported budget of ₹65 crore and a screen count of approximately 3,100. In comparison, Johar’s 2012 film opened at ₹7.52 crore net. It ended up collecting ₹62.94 crore net with a budget of ₹59 crore in 1,350 screens. “SOTY2 is largely a multiplex film that’s performing well in bigger cities than single screen areas,” says Shailesh Kapoor of Ormax Media, a firm specialising in box office trade insights. “It doesn’t have too much comedy or action which tends to work better in smaller towns.”
Sports and politics
Contrary to popular belief, Avengers: Endgame didn’t snatch audiences away from SOTY2. The Marvel film has already been in theatres for three weeks now and has collected ₹351 crore net so far. The two film’s audiences don’t overlap in the least. According to Kapoor it was the Indian Premier League’s play-off match on SOTY2’s opening day and the final game on Sunday that did the Johar film in. Plus, the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Delhi-NCR kept people away from theatres. “Two out of three days of the first weekend were affected and SOTY2 ended up losing ₹5 to ₹6 crore net,” says Kapoor adding that digital and satellite sales (to Amazon Prime Video most likely) will more than make up for box office losses. The film is expected to end its theatrical run at approximately ₹65 crore net, with the Luv Ranjan’s De De Pyaar De releasing today.