It hasn’t quite been a great year for Bollywood with over a dozen films bringing lull to the box office. According to trade analysts, the total box office collections in the year were about 10 percent less than that in 2016.
“2017 was a mixed bag year. Films that were expected to do well fell flat while quite a handful of small budget movies fared well with strong content. But then the industry cannot run on these small films alone because they have their limitations and there is a limit to which they can earn,” Komal Nahta, Bollywood trade analyst said.
“We needed more commercially successful movies which were scarce in number this year,” Nahta added.
This year nine films made it to the coveted Rs 100-crore club — Tiger Zinda Hai, Golmaal Again, Judwaa 2 (Rs 140 crore), Bahubali 2 (Hindi), Raees (Rs 135 crore), Jolly LLB 2 (Rs 120 crore), Toilet – Ek Prem Katha (Rs 135 crore), Tubelight (Rs 120 crore) and Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya (Rs 115 crore).
However, entering the Rs 100-crore club is no more the parameter to measure success in Bollywood. The pressure on Bollywood bigwigs to garner Rs 200-300 crore has only increased since movies like Dangal raised the bar higher.
This year, Golmaal Again managed to cross the Rs 200-crore mark by a small margin. The movie earned around Rs 205 crore. Recently-released Tiger Zinda Hai earned Rs 150 crore in the opening week and is expected to cross the Rs 200 crore-mark by the end of its second week.
The highest grosser of the year though, continues to be Baahubali: The Conclusion, that not only set record in regional market, but also managed to set fresh records with its Hindi version. Baahubali has become the first Bollywood film to have crossed the Rs 500-crore mark.
According to a latest report by online ticket booking platform BookMyShow with over 1450 films that were listed on the site in 2017, it was clearly the year of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. BookMyShow alone sold over 16 million tickets for the film, which had consecutive run of 175 days at the box office. For the portal, the most successful films after Baahubali 2 were Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal Again and Akshay Kumar-starrer Jolly LLB 2.
While Bahubali 2, Golmaal Again and Tiger Zinda Hai were the hits, the industry had misses too, where even star cast and good content failed to fill the box office coffers.
“Even the Khans couldn’t guarantee success this season. Films like Harry Met Sejal and Jagga Jasoos are classic examples of how even a star cast couldn’t assure success,” said analyst Atul Mohan.
While SRK-starrer Harry Met Sejal made about Rs 95 crore and Ranbir Kapoor-Katrina Kaif starrer Jagga Jasoos made about Rs 55 crore, there were others like Simran, Rangoon, Ok Jaanu and Raabta that couldn’t even cross Rs 25 crore at the box office in their full run.
