charlie Jatinder

So talked with an exhibitor friend. He didn't knew about the business detail of Avatar but said the inflation could be due to the fact that Fox Star India execs would have wanted to paint a better picture for the prospects in India, to get better budgets and money from America. One way of doing so was reporting a higher number. Since Avatar made most of its money in 3D and after 3rd week in their reporting, the share after 3rd week as per their reporting would be around ₹11cr only from ₹57cr GROSS and overall ₹30cr SHARE. Regarding BOI it is possible, they have bit smaller number from South and Nett number might not be including 3D glass charges.

Binged Love, Victor yesterday. Thread.

But those aren't just my calculations, except for North America & UK. Whole of Europe, East Asia and Latin America track admissions. Those numbers are all actuals. I know China is wild card, but I am taking almost 4x admissions of Avatar, when the business growth for Hollywood is about 6x. The much more credible number will be 75mn range admits instead. How else you think I put $180mn expectations. Avatar numbers are worth $130mn only today. Endgame had 35% growth in gross in Latin America despite almost 90% growth in admits. And it is plain obvious Avatar 2 ain't growing that much.

Well, Studio want a share in 3D glass charges which exhibitor didn't. So distributors other than Disney stopped releasing in 3D. Disney has no problem in letting go any additional revenue from 3D.

Yeah collection were okay but it released in far from prints than SMH and T:R. On 2000 screens, you at least neeed ₹80-90cr business to be called HIT. Also few territories Fox sold to individual distributors, which lost money.

Fanwars aside, my serious prediction for Avatar 2 will be as follow. China: I know this is a wild card. The Hollywood box office in China has increased from 100mn admits in 2010 to 560mn last year though it peaked at 670mn in 2017 but people seems to assume that the biggest film increase is also at same rate. By 2017, the market increased for Hollywood films at 6.7x but biggest film increased by 2.8x only.Now there are two reasons for that, One the number of screens has increased manifold but population is still around the same. In 2010, Avatar would have released on 4000 screens only but had 75mn plus seats to fill in its run, so seats were still there and people were still there, but it had 26mn viewers & Two the market increased due to more films increasing and basically films which appeal was less in 2010 was getting more audience by 2017. The biggest Hollywood watched film in China is at 87mn, I don't think Avatar 2 will go much higher. Even if that 87mn is matched, the gross value is unlikely because Endgame had a fanbase to pay the high prices which general audience won't. The ATP in China is roughly ¥35-38, Endgame was ¥49. At 87mn, Avatar 2 will be at ¥3.3Bn approx i.e. $470mn. And frankly speaking I have my doubts on whether it can really go for 87mn. And regarding 3D, well 90% plus of box office is in 3D for almost all films, as 3D is force fed. So about $475mn (+/-20%). USA: Avatar had 72mn viewers in USA/Canada. Now no film with 60mn plus viewers, had its sequel increase except Endgame but that was kind of like MCU thing, in time increasing. TDK sequel fell from 67mn to 50mn. JW sequel fell from 67mn to 42mn. TFA from 93mn to 62mn, so you get it. I don't think Avatar 2 will be exception either. Expecting at least 20% decline in viewership will account to 58mn at 2021 prices, which will be low post Covid and assuming a decent 3D share for 30-40%, well should be able to gross $625mn. If the WoM ain't great, which is unlikely though, I won't be surprised with similar to The Lion King numbers. Europe: Now this is the region I expect a big drop. Two factors, one ER is shit and two viewership is down in majority countries with low inflation. Avatar had 93mn viewers in Europe which at Endgame ticket rates is about $810mn Approx as compared to $1.1Bn in 2009. Besides, I think it getting 75mn viewers will be a max. Expecting $650mn Approx. Latin America: Now this is the market which will suffer be primarily due to exchange rates. Avatar grossed $152 million in this region but even at Endgame ticket rates, it is less than $130mn today. Endgame grossed $260mn in the region compared to $190mn of The Avengers, even though admissions almost doubled. I don't think Avatar 2 will be doubling its admissions, in fact Infinity War admissions is best it can hope for. I expect around $180mn with exchange rate even going shittier. Asia-Japan: This will be the market which will see the growth. I can totally put Infinity War numbers for it here. Roughly 60mn admits and a gross of ~$325mn. Japan and Australia: Well these two suffers from ER and not much of inflation with usual moviegoing decline. Japan is expected to gross $100mn while Australia shall be around $75mn. Worldwide: $2425mn ($2000-2700mn) That said, I don't see any reason that film fail to cross $2 Billion unless its shit or Post Covid nobody want to go to theaters and all.

Talking only modern films, say since 1997. Asia and Latin America is Avengers: Endgame and Europe & Oceania is Titanic.

This thread is OS-C. Also, No. It's more like $500mn today perhaps.

Since I didn't track box office numbers back then, I have no option but to follow Fox numbers but the ₹125cr they have reported is pure BS from whatever numbers I have seen. BOI numbers though less are still probably close to actuals. Also Avatar Special Edition is said to do ₹15cr. Now that's some huge business for a re-release but guess what, there's absolutely no reporting for that anywhere. I checked the plexes yearly numbers archives, nothing there. When Titanic 3D did ₹18cr, it was all over the place, for Avatar, nothing. Fox also inflated My Name Is Khan numbers that year by 10%, so who knows? Only big numbers for Avatar I have seen till date is, it grossed ₹7cr in Prasad Hyderabad. That's it. Also if you look at numbers Fox reporting was even more of BS. Week 1: ₹40cr (BOI once mentioned around ₹36cr, 90% that's close enough) Week 2: ₹20cr (Fine 3 Idiots released, so drop is obvious but Xmas saves it. 3 Idiots grossed ₹76cr Nett) Week 3: ₹14cr (Yeah, New Year weekend, hold is fine. 3I hold better at 74%.) Week 4: ₹13cr (But why? No Holiday. No expansion. 3I hold was 53% after Holiday, why will this be 90% plus) Week 5: ₹13.2cr (Like WTF? And there were big films and cinemas closed in South India for a day as well. 3 Idiots hold was 53% and this increased) Week 6: ₹6.7cr (Veer released. 3 Idiots hold 60%. And co-incidentally BOI says in that week Avatar was actually flat) Week 7: ₹2.9cr (And all of sudden it drops 57%. 3 Idiots also dropped same) Week 8: ₹1.1cr (And another drop of 62%, next week MNIK released, the run perhaps end there. 3 Idiots hold so much better at 57%). I tried to correlate it with Baahubali: The Beginning (Hindi) which also released one week before a big film but even that don't fit well. Using Nett. Week 1: ₹43cr (108% Avatar Gross) Week 2: ₹25cr (125% Avatar) Week 3: ₹22cr (150% Avatar) Week 4: ₹12.5cr (96%, from here it stop making sense) Week 5: ₹6.5cr (50%) Week 6: ₹3.4cr (50%) Week 7: ₹1.9cr (65%) Week 8: ₹1cr (90%) Week 9 and after: ₹1cr (200%+) If AVATAR had grossed ₹125cr, I believe someone in trade would have paid attention to it. Avatar numbers seems at least $8mn inflated and as per BOI they are $10mn inflated.

Like after Endgame?

So Indian box office. Have seen many people confused about a few things about the Indian box office, so I am gonna make a post simplifying as much as I can. @grim22 & @ZeeSoh can pin this or move it to the first page if that's something they can do. Will make a couple of lists like Highest grossers and all, chalo shuru karte hain. Everything you always wanted to know about Indian box office First off, let's get done with terms used in the Indian box office. GROSS: GROSS as you know, like everywhere else, except China, is the total sales of movie tickets. GROSS is rarely reported officially in Bollywood and Hollywood numbers but in the last few years, GROSS reporting has increased due to an increase in PAN-INDIA (will get to that) films. There are a few industries (yeah, we have multiple industries, will get to that too) that report GROSS, namely Kollywood, Mollywood, etc. NETT: This is the number, which is most widely reported for Bollywood, Hollywood and most North Indian films. This is basically "GROSS - Taxes & Service Charges". Prior to July 2017, there used to be an 'Entertainment Tax' which used to vary from state to state, on an average of 35-40% over the NETT sales. Post July 2017, India changed its taxation system and introduced GST. Currently, the GST rate is 18% for tickets priced over ₹100 and 12% for tickets less than ₹100. Other than GST, some states have additional taxes at the local administration level. The overall tax figure comes out to 17-25% depending on which state the film made more money from. SHARE: SHARE is what Distributor/Studio make from the ticket sales after giving the Exhibitors their share. There are various models which can be used for a film depending on the film, distributor and theatres. The National Multiplex Chains have fixed a week-wise revenue sharing system while Single Screens/Independent theatres are negotiated for almost every film, which well at end of the day is also fixed in some sense. Spoiler SHARE terms in National Multiplexes Week 1: 50% of Nett Week 2: 42.5% of Nett Week 3: 35% of Nett Week 4 and after that: 30% of Nett If any film do Blockbuster business, a bonus 2.5% is added to every week. SHARE terms in Single Screens/Independent Chains Just like Plexes, they also have norm to follow week wise % terms but are usually higher than Plexes at 60-70%. Another method is rental system. A show has a fixed rent, say ₹25,000 for one show. A film collect ₹300,000 on 4 shows. After deducting ₹100,000 for rent, the rest is all SHARE of the film in that theater. It is also possible that a film collect just ₹80,000, which will mean -₹20,000 SHARE, known as DEFICIT. Let's take the example of Avengers: Endgame. It GROSS ₹446 crores in India. The NETT revenue after paying GST was ₹368 crore. The DISTRIBUTOR SHARE, i.e. what Disney earned was ₹168 crore Approx. Now, I hope you are aware of what the numbers you see mean, let me walk you through the main industries we have in India. Before that, you need to understand the languages in India, so go in the spoiler box. Spoiler https://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/india/indianlanguages.htm The North India is Indo-Aryan speakers, of which Hindi is biggest one, which almost everyone in North India is either first speaker or second. Me personally, Hindi is my third language after Punjabi and English. There are other languages Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, etc. The South India, i.e. grayish blue is Dravidian languages, i.e. Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam and Kannada. That's about enough. Bollywood: The biggest Industry in India, set in Mumbai, is one making Hindi language films. The main market for the film is North India as they can understand and speak Hindi along with maybe a separate mother tongue. About 40-45% of Indian box office come from this industry. In South India, Bollywood films are basically watched in cities where native people know Hindi or North Indians working in the South. Dangal, PK, 3 Idiots, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan are from Bollywood. Tollywood: This is the Telugu language industry based in Telangana & Andhra Pradesh (North East part of that greyish-blue region you see in the map). Baahubali films (s) are the ones you all know are from Tollywood. Currently 2nd biggest Industry with 12-15% share but in the next 10 years they could be the biggest as the sort of films they are making have big appeal in North India, like Baahubali, so dubbing them they can increase their share in the pie quite considerably. Kollywood: This is the Tamil language industry, based in Tamil Nadu (South East of that greyish-blue part of the map). The share of the industry is 11-15% and more often they are at number three. The popular movies from this industry are 2.0 and Robot. They have a really good parallel cinema. The biggest film is 2.0. Mollywood: This is the Malayalam language industry, based in Kerala (South West....). The share is roughly 5% and movies are quite isolated from the rest of India, they are doing their own thing but probably the best content in the Indian film Industry. Not many popular films and they need much more exposure. The biggest film is Pulimurugan. Sandalwood: Kannada-based industry in Karnataka, (North West...). 5% share, most popular film KGF. Pollywood: My state, roughly 1-2% share, Punjabi language, nothing really special. Make local comedies and rom-com mostly. The biggest film is Carry on Jatta 2. And some other language industries in North India, rarely make any big film that catches the nation's eye. 6-7% share. It is the result of Bollywood's dominance that none other North Indian industry is the first preference of the respective state. Biggest film Sairat. In recent years, post-Baahubali, PAN INDIA films have started getting made. Most of the time, it's just big-budget South Indian films having Tier B actors from Bollywood and dubbed in Hindi released in North. Recent film like Syeraa Narasimha Reddy. In future, there will be more. Basically, attempt to get whole of INDIA audience instead of just their own state. How box office is tracked in India? There are basically two numbers that you will see in India. One is Producer/Official numbers. The numbers are revealed Officially. A few years back these numbers were inflated very highly in Bollywood but nowadays things are better with increase in multiplexes' share of business, the box office is more accessible. The problem in South India still exists and they do release some BS numbers now and then. The other numbers are Trade Numbers. There are independent reporting services like Box Office India and many individual trackers like myself. South India, again things are a bit erry due to toxic fan culture and individual trackers. As to how the box office is tracked. Well, we don't have comScore coverage big enough to report numbers, but the existing box office system is quite robust. India is divided into various box office territories, look at another map in the spoiler. Basically, the numbers are compiled by adding numbers from these individual territories which are readily available if you know where to get them. Some territories may take more time to arrive but they do. On the base of these daily estimates are released by trade and by end of the week, the actuals are almost there. The numbers of trade may differ based on their sources, for Bollywood, Box Office India is 99-100% accurate except sometimes, they notoriously give higher numbers initially for some PR or friendly purposes but in the end, their database numbers are quite good. Spoiler One more FAQ is what is crore and how much is this in dollars. Well, 'crore' is a term of the Indian number system equal to 10 million and regarding how much this is in dollars, learn the table of 7 for now. That will give you an idea. Whatever number in crore you see, divide it by 7 and that's dollar gross in millions. Way ER is going, you may soon need to learn table 8. Now some facts and myths about the Indian box office. The ticket prices are very low compared to the rest of the world at roughly ₹100-225 ($1.5-3) depending on which theatre film makes money. For Bollywood films ATP in 2019 was ₹160 while for Hollywood around ₹175. No, India doesn't sell 2 billion or 3 billion movie tickets in a year. In 2019, the Indian box office grossed ₹11,500 cr Approx i.e $1.65 Billion selling roughly 750-800 million tickets and that's about the highest we go in a year. We are 5th biggest in terms of Gross and 3rd biggest in terms of Admissions. South Indians watch way more films than North India. In fact, North numbers are awful, while South India is similar to Korea, with big films getting even 30% of the population to watch the biggest films. Anything else you wanna know, I will put it in. Now a Few Lists. Highest-Grossing Films in India Spoiler Rank Title Year Gross (in crores ₹) Gross (in million $) 1 Baahubali: The Conclusion 2017 ₹1,347.00 $210.47 2 K.G.F: Chapter 2 2022 ₹980.00 $128.95 3 RRR 2022 ₹901.00 $120.13 4 Pathaan 2023 ₹635.00 $77.91 5 Dangal 2016 ₹511.30 $75.19 6 2.0 2018 ₹508.50 $72.64 7 Baahubali: The Beginning 2015 ₹482.00 $76.51 8 Avatar: The Way of Water 2022 ₹464.00 $56.24 9 P.K. 2014 ₹455.00 $72.22 10 Avengers: Endgame 2019 ₹448.00 $63.90 11 Tiger Zinda Hai 2017 ₹432.25 $67.02 12 Sanju 2018 ₹434.50 $66.85 13 Bajrangi Bhaijaan 2015 ₹422.20 $67.02 14 Sultan 2016 ₹415.10 $62.27 15 Padmaavat 2018 ₹379.00 $58.31 16 Dhoom 3 2013 ₹363.30 $57.67 17 Kantara 2022 ₹362.00 $45.70 18 War 2019 ₹359.80 $50.68 19 Pushpa: The Rise 2021 ₹348.00 $45.37 20 Saaho 2019 ₹339.25 $47.45 21 Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior 2019 ₹328.00 $47.73 22 Ponniyin Selvan-I 2022 ₹327.00 $41.39 23 Kabir Singh 2019 ₹325.40 $46.99 24 Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva 2022 ₹310.00 $39.24 25 Vikram 2022 ₹307.00 $39.36

4 days out was pretty much on spot.

lol. I know ₹295cr which A: IW did was no where expected but that time around was surely expecting ₹25cr opening and ₹180cr full run.

This was my portal. What I meant, and I think I mentioned in article was Highest opening for Superhero's first standalone film. Otherwise Origin opening record stands with The Amazing Spider-Man back then, and now Captain Marvel.

which basically means First week SHARE was ₹2cr and full run of ₹3cr. A disaster for Distributor.

USA.

It's funny how Dhoom 3 crossed CE's opening weekend of $2.42mn Approx in just 2 days grossing $3.5mn and ending at $8.5mn. Basically Dhoom 3 * 100 is Avengers: Endgame.

I know such things happen in South India and recently Bigil had similar case but again, Producers taxation is far far away from gross collection. One the Entertainment tax back then and GST now are paid by Exhibitor. Producer basically has the rights plus overflow as his revenue. In case of Krrish 3, Roshans sold India rights in ₹55cr and overseas were around ₹10cr. Krrish 3 earned ₹95cr SHARE in India, which means they roughly had ₹70cr revenue from India after paying off commision and Distributor's cut. The nett Sattelite revenue was ₹40cr and other revenues accounted for ₹20cr Approx. The overall recovery was ₹140-145cr against ₹60cr production and release cost. Since Producer, Director and Actor are Father-Son, the income they distributed between themselves will be known to them. Hrithik market value back then was ₹30-35cr per film. Dividing the Krrish 3 Gross of ₹245cr to stakeholders. To various State Government: ₹60cr (Entertainment Tax) Exhibitors: ₹90cr (They will pay income tax on that after deducting their operating expenses) Distributors: ₹25cr (They will pay income tax on that after deducting their operating expenses) Producers/Roshans: ₹70cr (They will pay income tax on that after deducting their operating expenses)

Good but K3 numbers were inflated, actuals are what BOI gave.

Top admits are basically Sholay: 25cr Baahubali 2: 12cr Mother India: 12cr Appox Mughal-e-Azam: 10cr plus Gadar: 8cr plus Hum Aapke Hai Kaun: 7cr Approx These are top 6. There will be many 5cr plus films in past. Waiting for BOI to update their database, though won't really care about their footfalls as per BOI.

In case still interested. I was also curious for Vishwaroopam numbers back in 2013. The internet numbers were huge and I even believed them considering I loved the film. The pan India films we listen more enough now, was limited back then. Anyhow Vishwaroopam was a so-so performer, just managing to breakeven for Hassan. Sequel was much anticipated but was delayed and then turned out to be poor. I wrote an article for the sequel in 2018 on a portal I was part of Territory Vishwaroopam 2 Vishwaroopam Tamil Nadu 18.65 44.15 AP/Nizam 4.60 8.60 Kerala 1.06 4.10 Karnataka 3.60 7.05 North India 5.30 17.95 All India 33.22 81.85 Overseas 12.91 ($1.87 Mn) 18.85 ($3.46 Mn) Worldwide 46.13 100.71

Well Distributor Share is basically OG. The reporting/tracking started from the Distributor/Studio POV, a film may be grossing ₹1cr or ₹0.8cr, what good is that to him, if he is only getting ₹0.4cr SHARE from both. Basically what Producer/Distributor was earning. That's the reason why SHARE is the one which is used to measure success. Similarily in USA, Disney films have higher SHARE than others, that make them much bigger success for studio than any other studio. Also, China numbers are looked down because they basically gonna get 20% of Gross anyways. Regarding why Nett? Well Nett basically got prominence in late 90s and early 2000s. It was on rationale that let's include Exhibition sector as well for reporting and classification because they are also part of industry. Gross was left yet because Taxes don't come to industry but goes outside industry. In time, with Overseas gross getting bigger, Worldwide gross become a thing, and people started looking at gross as well, though focus is still Nett.

Most watched films OS-C 1. Titanic: 244mn (First run 228mn) 2. Avengers: Endgame: 223mn 3. Avatar: 189mn 4. Avengers: Infinity War: 170mn 5. The Lion King (2019): 166mn