Mission Mangal emerged as Akshay Kumar’s highest opening day earner as well as the highest grosser of his career.Ever since its release on August 30, Prabhas’ Saaho has overtaken other Bollywood movies running in theaters. The action-thriller helmed by Sujeeth gave a perfect wrap to the month of August, which was dominated by Akshay Kumar’s Mission Mangal and John Abraham’s Batla House. The films together added nearly Rs 300 crore to the overall box office collections. In all, August of 2019 brought good news for filmmakers and distributors.
Giving an insight into the box office performance of films in August, film trade analyst Girish Johar said, “The leaders of the pack are Mission Mangal and Batla House. It is for the first time in Independence Day weekend box office history that the releases together contributed nearly Rs 300 crore to the overall box office collections.”
Mission Mangal, based on ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) or the Mangalyaan project, emerged as Akshay Kumar’s highest opening day earner with Rs 29.16 crore collection as well as the highest grosser of his career. It has collected Rs 187.20 crore until now and is inching towards Rs 200 crore mark. Its competition Batla House, made on a budget of approximately Rs 47 crore, also grabbed the interest of movie buffs and managed to add Rs 94.92 crore to its kitty after running in theaters for two weeks.
This year also witnessed a growth in footfall at theaters during Independence Day. Girish Johar suggested, “This Independence Day is definitely better than the previous year since the audience has become more mature and they are wanting more intelligent subjects. It was not a kind of a masala Independence Day at the movies. It had some smart content to offer.”
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The Hollywood releases of the month, Once Upon Time In Hollywood, Angry Birds and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw also added to the total collection of August 2019. But unlike other Hollywood releases like The Lion King or Avengers Endgame, they could not be money-spinners. Commenting on the collection of Hollywood releases this month, Johar said, “Quentin Tarantino’s films have a niche, upmarket audience and it has always been like that. It did decent business in India. Even Angry Birds did average business. Hobbs and Shaw also collected around Rs 80 crore in India.”
Overall, August 2019 has registered a 10 per cent growth in comparison to August 2018. According to Girish Johar, the month has clocked a whopping amount of Rs 400 crore approximately at the box office. The only disappointments were Sonakshi Sinha’s Khandaani Shafakhana (Rs 3.83 crore) and Siddharth Malhotra and Parineeti Chopra’s Jabariya Jodi (Rs 16.33 crore).
