There is shock and disbelief practically every week when a film releases but a better understanding of the present box office scenario will help the industry accept the facts. The box office is still there but it is only there for GOOD films or actually we should say accepted films as a lot of the indsutry does not believe that HIT films are the GOOD films but sooner or later they will have to understand this also.

The changed scenario is there basically for the films which the audience has not liked or not interested in. There is a 50% hit on the bigger films which are expected to do well in most places. This 50% less is not what was EXPECTED pre pandemic but what they would have DONE pre pandemic. This 50% hit is for films which deserve a theatrical release and the ones that dont are hit even harder.

If we take Shamshera and Thugs Of Hindostan as similar zone films and now taking the lifetime of Shamshera at 45 crore nett then it looks well short of Thugs of Hindostan but that was a holiday release and you can take out 20 crore nett alone for the first day and then another 15-20 crore nett for the rest of the holiday period which brings that film below the 100 crore nett mark. Basically its a 50% cut in busines when a major film goes wrong. Its the same for films like Bachchhan Pandey and Samraat Prithviraj.

The other side is when a film works be it a KGF 2 or Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 then these films are doing business as they would have done pre pandemic and actually more as there is a far lesser audience for the weaker films so the accepted films get the benefit.

Obviously the correction in budgets and costs is coming but only time will tell how it all be worked out as the good films are going to work though as usual there may only be handful of these in a year like always. Whan you launch a film you launch as it you think its a good film and it will work at the box office so how do you value that theatrical today as the ranges are going to be vast depending on the content. 

Before it would have been like minimum 200 crore if the film works and 100 crore at least if it goes wrong now that same scenario is 200 crore plus if it works but only 40-50 crore if it goes wrong.  Its a dicey situation as budgeting at the base numbers will mean poorer production values while budgeting higher by giving higher theatrical value than a base number involves risk..

It will be a tough one to get around but right now the industry has to understand that rejected films are not going to do numbers like they did pre pandemic no matter who is actor or director so just have to accept that and not be in shock every week. A holiday period helped films like Thugs Of Hindostan and Dabangg 3 add 30-35% and that can still happen but while real value of those films was around 100 crore then the added holiday value now it would be around 50 crore and then the added holiday value which would push up another 15-20 crore nett.

The only way out at the moment is good films which hold appeal for most centres but that is actually very easy for us to write but much much harder to actually do.