Bollywood is back with a bang: Sooryavanshi strikes gold at box-office

Akshay Kumar starrer has earned Rs 50 crore in 2 days, set to hit Rs 125 crore in 7 days

Bollywood is back with a bang. After 19 months and multiple postponements due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Sooryavanshi, the first big-budget film after cinema halls opened in Maharashtra, has hit gold and is projected to garner box-office (BO) collections of Rs 125 crore in the first seven days. That will be enough for producers to break even, despite the long wait to release the film.

The Akshay Kumar starrer has already collected Rs 50.14 crore in the first two days. It had a resounding opening last Friday, and according to producers, garnered BO collections of Rs 26.29 crore. That makes it the 22nd highest opening for a Hindi movie on the first day, says Bollywood entertainment website Bollywood Hungama.

Says Shibashish Sarkar, former group chief executive officer of Reliance Entertainment, and a producer of the film, along with Rohit Shetty and Dharma Productions, among others: “The film has done outstandingly in the BO, despite many limitations in theatres. In the first two days, it has hit Rs 50 crore and we expect we will reach Rs 75-80 crore by the weekend. We expect demand to continue to remain firm and we should be able to hit next Thursday with BO collections of Rs 125 crore, which will be enough to recover our costs. In the long term, it should make Rs 200 crore and we will surely be profitable.”

According to sources, Sooryavanshi comes with a stiff price tag of around Rs 260-270 crore, which includes its marketing and the holding cost for 19 months.

But the film has already recovered part of the cost by selling its digital rights to Netflix and broadcasting rights to Zee, apart from its music rights, at a hefty price.

According to industry estimates, these three rights have been sold for roughly Rs 200 crore. So a BO collection of Rs 120 crore, which is shared equally between producers and exhibitors, will be enough to cover the total cost of the film. Its share from additional BO collections in the domestic and overseas markets will be its profit. Hence, if it hits a BO collection of Rs 200 crore, it would have a profit of Rs 40 crore.

Sarkar says the initial numbers have been achieved, despite the fact that as many as 1,000 screens in the country are permanently closed. Plus, 30 per cent of the movie screens by value (share of BO collections) are operating at only 50 per cent capacity in states like Maharashtra, Bihar, and others. The movie has been launched in 3,519 screens. 

This impacts overall revenue, especially on a Sunday, when demand is always at its peak. But the good news for producers is that many multiplexes have increased ticket prices by 15-20 per cent, from the 2019 numbers, and this will help in increasing revenue.         

Trade analyst Komal Nahta says the first-day collections of Sooryavanshi would have hit over Rs 30 crore, making it Akshay Kumar’s biggest first-day opening after Mission Mangal (which was Rs 29.16 crore in 2019) if the caps on movie hall capacity were not there in Maharashtra. 

Hence, the highest BO collections for the movie in the first two days came from Gujarat Saurashtra (20.6 per cent of total BO collections), followed by the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh region (20.2 per cent), and the Maharashtra-Goa region (18.3 per cent).  

Says Nahta: “The success of the movie will give a big push to the big films waiting in the wings, as there are about three potential blockbusters readying to be released every month.”

The production houses have also leveraged their global reach. 

Sooryavanshi is being aggressively pushed abroad, where it is showing in 1,300 screens in a record-breaking 66 countries and has made net BO collections of Rs 14.85 crore in the first two days. The US, the UK, and the United Arab Emirates accounted for 74 per cent of the collections.  

RUSH THROUGH THE TURNSTILES

• BO collections expected to hit Rs 125 crore; movie expected to recover its total cost within seven days
• Made at a stiff cost of Rs 260-270 crore, which includes 19 months’ holding cost
• Has pre-sold its digital and broadcasting rights to Netflix and Zee at a hefty price
• Should make a profit of over Rs 40 crore. Expected to have domestic BO collections of Rs 200 crore     
• Showing globally in 1,300 screens in 66 countries