Comic-book superhero flick bags Rs27 crore on opening weekend as Hindi releases disappoint
Mayur Lookhar
Who says Indian audiences don’t warm up to Hollywood releases? After the stupendous success of The Jungle Book, yet another Hollywood release has stamped its authority on the Indian box office.
Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War was the lone bright spot last weekend with the superhero flick bagging Rs27.13 crore net in its opening weekend, according to trade analyst Taran Adarsh.
#CaptainAmericaCivilWar Fri 8.53 cr, Sat 8.79 cr, Sun 9.81 cr. Total: â¹ 27.13 cr nett. India biz. Gross: â¹ 37.68 cr. EXCELLENT!
— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) May 9, 2016
The film opened with Rs8.53 crore on Friday and improved marginally over Saturday and Sunday bagging Rs8.79 crore and Rs9.81 crore, respectively.
By comparison, the three Hindi releases of last week -- Traffic, 1920 London, and Sunny Leone’s One Night Stand -- fared poorly, bagging a meagre Rs2 crore, Rs7.5 crore, and Rs2.25 crore, respectively, on the opening weekend, according to boxofficeindia.com
Manoj Bajpai’s Traffic won critical acclaim but failed to pull in the crowds. Despite her appeal, Sunny Leone’s One Night Stand, too, failed to excite audiences.
Trade Analyst Komal Nahta said, “The three Hindi films fared poorly. 1920 fetched around Rs2.5 crore on the opening day. But the other two Hindi releases (Traffic and One Night Stand) were horrendous and couldn’t even bag a crore on a single day. Captain America is clearly the lone winner here.”
According to Komal Nahta, Captain America was released across 1000-plus screens in the country with approximately 60 per cent of the screens reserved for the English version and the remaining for the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu versions.
The Jungle Book, which set a record at the Indian box office for a Hollywood film, saw more than 50% share coming from the regional versions. Komal Nahta, however, does not see the same thing happening with Captain America.
“Jungle Book had a strong Indian connect with its content. People had watched the cartoon in Hindi 20-25 years ago, so that is why we had large numbers of screens for the dubbed versions. The same cannot be said of Captain America where it has more English screens.”
The Jungle Book had bagged Rs48 crore net in the first four days and had more screens (1500+) than Captain America. Next Friday will see Ekta Kapoor’s Azhar hit the screens, but didn’t The Jungle Book eat into Fan? If Azhar fails to hit the right strokes, Captain America might just edge ahead in the box-office battle.