Gadar 2’s Rs 400 cr-club entry likely to make July-Sept best-ever quarter for Bollywood

Propelled by Gadar 2’s entry into the Rs 400-crore club, July-September 2023 is expected to become the best quarter for Hindi Box Office in the post-Covid era with a projected collection of Rs 1,200 crore.  

Sunny Deol-starrer Gadar 2, a sequel to the 2001 superhit film, has earned Rs 410 crore in net collections as of August 23, 2023 – within 13 days of its release. Continuing its strong run at the box office, it is expected to breach the Rs 450 crore-mark soon. This brings it close to Shahrukh Khan-starrer Pathaan’s Rs 543 crore India net collection.  

Akshay Kumar-starrer OMG 2 has also become a hit with Rs 113.67 crore net collections within 10 days of its release, according to trade portal Bollywood Hungama.  

So far, April-June 2022 has been the best with Rs 1,000 crore collections, helped by the blockbuster successes of the Hindi-dubbed versions of Kannada’s KGF: Chapter 2 and Telugu’s RRR as well as Hindi’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, according to Karan Taurani, Senior Vice President and Research Analyst at brokerage firm Elara Capital.  

“The Hindi Box Office is slated to grow 20 per cent this quarter compared to the pre-covid levels, towards Rs 1200 crore, which means the second quarter of the current financial year could be the best quarter for Hindi Box Office in the post covid era,” he said in a note. 

Ayushmann-Khurrana starrer Dream Girl 2, meanwhile, opened on August 25 to healthy advances. Elara Capital expects the film to draw a lifetime collection of Rs 70 crore – a good sum considering the film was made on a medium budget of around Rs 35 crore.   

Shahrukh Khan’s second release for the year Jawan – a multi-starrer with popular actors from both Hindi and Tamil industries is slated for release in September first week – is also expected to further boost Bollywood’s collections. 

The movies have offered a much-needed respite to the Bollywood Box Office which has been the slowest to recover after the pandemic. Audience’s viewing preference changed during the health crisis as they got hooked on to high-quality streaming content across Indian and international languages and theatres struggled to draw audiences back to the theatres once the lockdowns were lifted.  

Sub-par Hindi movies didn’t help matters as even A-listers such as Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and Ranveer Singh couldn’t deliver hits. Meanwhile, movies from the southern industries delivered big-ticket hits theatrically, with their dubbed versions doing wonders even in the Hindi speaking belts.  

At Rs 3,500 crore gross collections, Hindi cinema under-performed in 2022, according to consultancy firm Ormax Media. In the pre-pandemic year of 2019, it did Rs 4,831 crore in gross collections. Between January and June 2023, Hindi films collected a gross Rs 1,800 crore at the box office.