Slumdog impact: Jan, Feb box-office collections shine despite slowdown

Call it the Slumdog impact, but despite the economic slowdown Bollywood’s box office collections for the first two months of this year have jumped 32 per cent over 2008.

Box office collections from over eight movies, which accounted for the bulk of the revenues, hit Rs 190 crore in January-February compared to Rs 145 crore from over 12 movies in 2008 during the same months, data with trade analysts show.

The main contributors to the increased collections this year are films like Raaz 2, Delhi 6, Billu, Dev D, and Slumdog Millionaire. Together these films have generated over Rs 100 crore in gross box-office collections. A significant contributor has been the collections from Aamir Khan’s Ghajini that was released over Christmas last year.

“Usually, January and February are slow in terms of collections. But this year, the main reasons for higher collections are clearly the rise in the number of screens and higher ticket prices. Of course, the line-up of films was interesting too,” said Shailendra Singh, joint MD, Percept Holdings, a company that produces movies.

Over the past two or three months, ticket prices rose 15 to 25 per cent. But more people have been coming to the movie halls too. “The average occupancy rates for January and February were in the range of 55 to 65 per cent depending on the movies. In the same period last year occupancy was 35 to 40 per cent. Except for a Chandni Chowk to China or a Luck By Chance, the films have attracted the viewers to the theatres in good numbers, a fact that is showing in the collections so far,” said a senior executive from Inox, the company that operates a number of multiplexes across big and small cities.

The past two months have also seen a jump in on-line bookings. “In January, we had traffic of 1.5 million on Bookmyshow.com, a very high number compared to January 2008. More traffic is coming to the website because there is a better content proposition playing in the theatres,” said Roopesh Shah, head of marketing for Bookmyshow.com, a specialised portal for online theatre bookings in the big cities.