Gross box office collections below ₹5,000 crore mark in first half of 2023: Report

New Delhi: In a first, cumulative India box office collections for film releases across languages between January and June fell below the ₹5,000 crore. Gross collections were at ₹4,868 crore for the first six months of calendar year 2023, down 15% on year, according to a report by media consulting firm Ormax.

Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan was the top film in the first half of 2023, contributing over 13% of overall collections so far this year. The share of Hindi language was at at 37%, up from 33% in 2022, while the share of Kannada language dipped from 8% to just 2%.

Across languages, Pathaan is estimated to have made ₹646 crore in gross box office, followed by mythological film Adipurush at ₹333 crore, political drama The Kerala Story ( ₹263 crore) and Tamil films Varisu ( ₹212 crore) and Ponniyin Selvan 2 ( ₹206 crore).

At this current pace, 2023 is expected to end with ₹9,736 crore in box office collections, down from ₹10,637 crore mopped up in 2022.

In a positive, the second half of 2023 has a strong line-up of films that are expected to perform well, especially Jawan, Salaar, and Tiger 3, the report said.

The success of K.G.F: Chapter 2 and RRR had resulted in the combined language share of the four south Indian languages being 50% in 2022, with Hindi being only 33% (including a sizeable contribution from dubbed versions of the two southern films). In 2023 so far, Hindi language’s share has gone up to 37%, while the South languages share has dropped from 50% to 44%, largely because of a steep drop in Kannada language’s share, from 8% (2022) to 2% (January to June 2023), the report said.