Box Office Collections from Singham Again and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 reach Rs 230 crore, raise exhibitors' hopes

The encouraging response to the much-anticipated big-budget movies Singham Again and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 over the Diwali weekend has offered some relief to exhibitors who had been dealing with a dry spell of no new releases for a few weeks. Early reports from the trade circuit indicate that the combined collection from these two movies for the recent weekend (Friday to Sunday) was ₹231.4 crore.

Singham Again grossed ₹121.2 crore, while Bhool Bhulaiyaa earned ₹110.2 crore. "After a lengthy wait, two major films opened in theaters on the same day. The festival season offered the much-needed boost to the box office in terms of good collections," said Girish Wankhade, a movie trade analyst. These films, however, do not compete at the box office, he stated. "Screens were not evenly distributed between these two films. The screen count ratio for the two films is 60:40, with Singham Again obtaining 60% of the total screens".

Singham Again is distributed by PVR Inox Pictures, the distribution arm of PVR Inox, a multiplex with 1,747 screens. Anil Thadani owns AA Films, which distributes Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 over India. Aside from having a larger share of the screen and a large star cast, the scale and production quality of the Singham police universe or franchise have worked in its favor, resulting in higher collections.

Trade analysts anticipate Singham Again's budget to be between ₹300-₹350 crore, while Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 will cost around ₹150 crore. According to film distributor and trade analyst Shaaminder Malik, "Though the opening weekend of both these big-budget films has generated good collections, one must also bear in mind that the collections of both these films on Monday and Tuesday will be the litmus test." Both saw a decline in collections on Sunday after attracting a lot of attention from viewers throughout the first two days.

Exhibitors will determine whether to increase or decrease the number of showing for these films dependent on how they perform on Monday and Tuesday. According to an unidentified trade analyst, both films' Sunday collections are currently declining. As a result, Exhibitors will not favour any of these two pictures right away.

He also stated that word-of-mouth publicity will determine which picture will receive additional screenings in the future weeks by Tuesday or Wednesday. Interestingly, these two films' streaming or digital rights were successfully sold shortly after their premiere.