Alia-Ranbir starrer Brahmastra to provide much-needed respite to Hindi box office

New Delhi: Multi-starrer film “Brahmastra: Part One-Shiva”, slated to release this Friday, is expected to provide much-needed respite to the Hindi box office in the second quarter of the financial year 2023. So far, Q2FY23 is proving to be the worst quarter since 2016 for the Hindi box office.

Directed by Ayan Mukerji, "Brahmastra" features Ranbir Kapoor in the lead alongside Alia Bhatt, megastar Amitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna and Mouni Roy.

Karan Taurani of security research firm Elara Capital said that the film is expected to have a strong opening in the range of Rs 20-22 crore net with lifetime Box Office collection estimated to be in a wide range of Rs 130-200 crore basis the strong advances. 

“We believe a positive word of mouth and audience acceptance can help the film breach the upper end. It will be tough to provide any concrete estimates unless we get to know reviews, as most recent estimates have been revised downwards post reviews. Hope it’s the other way round (positive side) for Brahmastra as it’s a very large franchise movie and Hindi Box Office desperately needs a hit movie,” Taurani said.

Being a sci-fi film dubbed in multiple languages, the film will get strong support from regional markets too and dubbed language collection for Brahmastra may be in the range of 15-20% of overall net Box Office, said Taurani. 

Brahmastra is the first sci-fi-based Hindi franchise and augurs well as the audience wants to watch large-scale content in cinemas with visual effects. The film has seen strong acceptance/ advances in the premium format screens (Imax, 3D etc), given the nature of its content.

Recently, Liger’s performance at the box office was dismal as the Hindi collection of this film was mere Rs 17 crore lifetime. Overall (including regional) collection was approx Rs 65-70 crore. Karthikeya 2 has collected Rs 20 crore in Hindi and this is a good number given the size and scale of the film.

Occupancy rates for multiplexes have been dismal in the month of July and August in the range of 18-19% due to consistent failure in content. 

In the case the above numbers are reported for Brahmastra, occupancy may move upwards to 27-28% in September. 

“Despite a strong performance of Brahmastra, Hindi Box Office is slated to decline 45% vs pre-covid levels to Rs 500 crore (lowest Box Office collection for Hindi since Q1FY17) in Q2FY23 due to a consistent failure for Hindi films. On a full year basis, Hindi Box Office is slated to decline mere 8% vs pre-covid levels supported by healthy performance in Q1 and anticipation of a better Q3 due to festive season,” Taurani said.

Future releases such as Vikram Vedha (Hritik Roshan), PS -1 (Ashwariya Rai), Ram Setu (Akshay Kumar), Thank God (Ajay Devgan), Bhediya (Varun Dhawan), Avatar 2, Cirkus (Ranveer Singh) will be key monitorable for growth in the festive quarter (Q3FY23)

Taurani pointed out that the pressure on ad revenues is likely to continue as advertisers have lost confidence following dismal performance of recently released films. “Ad revenue will remain 30-35% lower than pre-covid levels and may see full recovery only post a consistent performance in content and Box Office collections.”

“We maintain our view that the Hindi film industry/ Box Office will make a strong comeback around H1FY24, as scripts/stories are redone basis of change in audience tastes and preferences for content in the post-covid era. We have seen this earlier too post Baahubali-2, wherein the Hindi film industry made a strong comeback post a slate of flop movies,” Taurani concluded.