'Spider-Man: No Way Home' brings the audience back to the cinema halls

The third movie in the Spider-Man series has garnered Rs 47.5 crore gross box office advance sales

Spider-Man: No Way Home has garnered Rs 47.5 crore gross box office advance sales across the country, which is the second highest so far after Avengers: End Game and Bahubali 2, according to estimates by Multiplex Association of India.

“Theatre owners are experiencing the second busiest advance ticket sales for a single movie title in the entire history of cinema exhibition ever since cinemas started reopening in October 2020,” Multiplex Association of India said in a press release. While, BookMyShow said that this is the highest advance sales for a movie that has been released post the start of the pandemic.

Apart from English, the movie has been dubbed in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil.

The movie was released on Thursday, with some theatres screening the movie as early as 4:00 AM.

So far, PVR’s premium formats are sold out till the weekend. Under the premium format, the cinema major has close to 110 screens across the country, which is 15 per cent of its total screens, Pramod Arora, chief growth and strategy officer of PVR, told Business Standard. Arora also expects the movie's box office collection to reach Rs 300 crore.

The multiplex leader has also seen great response across its other screen formats (like single screens) as well for Spider-Man: No Way Home, Arora said.

Sony Pictures Entertainment India, the distributor for the Tom Holland starrer Spider-Man movie, has released the film into 3,264 screens across the country, the company said in a statement. “With the humongous demand from the audience, screens are increasing every hour,” Sony Pictures Entertainment said in its statement. This is the highest number of screens for any Hollywood film released in India.

“We are hoping that the industry is coming back to normal. The good thing is that big releases were held back by their respective producers and directors because they were all large screen films,” Arora said. He added, “We hope these two months will set the stage for cinemas to have a great recovery which may probably surpass pre-Covid numbers also, so our hopes are high.”  

Inox has already sold two lakh tickets on the first day of the movie release and it is expected to go up during the day, Alok Tandon, chief executive officer - Inox Leisure said in a statement earlier in the day.  

“Fans across India have been waiting with anticipation to watch the third part of the Spider-Man franchise, which promises a lot of action and surprises. We are extremely excited to see the response from our guests, since the early morning shows, not just in the metro cities, but across the country,” Tandon said.

Online ticketing major, BookMyShow also said that the movie has “set the cash registers ringing” with 1 million tickets sold in advance since ticket sales opened for the movie pan-India, across all cinema chains.

“Apart from the English version of the release, the regional dubbed languages of the film are doing tremendously across Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. Telugu and Tamil versions have already contributed twice as many advance bookings as compared to the 2019 release of Spider-Man: Far From Home,” Ashish Saksena, COO – Cinemas, BookMyShow said in a release.

Saksena also said, “The movie's release in 3D, IMAX and 4DX formats is also adding to the traction with audiences across metros rushing to catch the film in these formats.”

BookMyShow believes that the Spider-Man movie has set the tone for December and expects another massive surge in booking during the upcoming weekend.