 "Barbie, Oppenheimer")
Multiplex owners and trade analysts expect two English blockbusters, Barbie and Oppenheimer — jocularly referred to jointly as Barbenheimer — released on Friday and are expected to make Rs. 150 crore at the box office.
Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, is expected to reach Rs. 100 crore but the gap between the two is shrinking because Barbie is catching up.
Kamal Gianchandani, chief business planning & strategy of PVR (which has merged with Inox) said Oppenheimer’s box office collections were at least twice or more that of Barbie’s. “But, based on the Saturday and Sunday box office trends, Barbie now has collections which are around 50 per cent of the Nolan film,” he said.
He said while Oppenheimer has performed according to expectations, which were ambitious, Barbie has exceeded expectations. It is doing more than 50 per cent more than what the industry had projected, despite the fact that it is not on IMAX where Oppenheimer is being shown (with higher ticket prices) and has not been dubbed in any other language.
While in the US, Barbie is miles ahead of Oppenheimer in the box office, India has bucked the trend. Multiplex owners hope that, after a long lull caused by the pandemic, the success of these movies will help film goers get back to cinemas.
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The film industry estimates that the capacity utilisation of screens went up as high as 80-85 per cent where these two movies were being shown and in IMAX cinemas, it has been virtually 100 per cent in the last two days, despite ticket prices of a record Rs. 2,500.
As a result, box office collections of Oppenheimer in the first two days have hit over Rs. 32 crore while Barbie has made around Rs. 12 crore.
“The trend of movie goers going back despite the monsoon started with Mission Impossible, which is a more mass movie but has made Rs. 80 crore in the first week,” said trade analyst Komal Nahta. Turn to Page 6 >
“I expect that Oppenheimer might hit Rs. 100 crore and Barbie could well go much higher than Rs. 50 crore, so things are looking up,” Nahta added.
A big Hindi movie is also in the pipeline. After an eight-year gap, Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani is to be released this week. With a budget of around Rs. 150 crore, it is expected to give a big push to Hindi films that have not had a big hit since Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan in January.
The other, more unexpected hit was Kerala Story, which also got audiences back to the screen. Theatre owners say a big movie is slated every three to four weeks till the end of December.
