Hollywood blockbusters break into India

Despite the boom in ticket sales, revenues for Hollywood’s biggest releases remain tiny in India compared to China © Reuters

Hollywood superheroes are muscling in on the Indian box office, the world’s biggest by tickets sold, helping US studios encroach on Bollywood’s local dominance. 

Fourth-quarter ticket sales for US films in India were up 114 per cent on a year earlier while Bollywood’s box office take grew only 34 per cent, according to brokerage Emkay.

American films have long struggled to make a splash in India, where Mumbai-based Bollywood and other regional film industries pump out more than 1,000 films a year.

But the rise of franchises such as Walt Disney-owned Marvel’s Avengers or Warner Bros subsidiary DC’s Batman has ushered in a boom in audiences for big-budget Hollywood productions.

Hollywood films took 10 per cent of India’s box office in 2018, up from just 3 per cent a decade earlier, according to EY’s most recent figures. That share is expected to have risen in 2019 due to the success of Avengers: Endgame, among the country’s highest-ever grossing films.

“Hollywood is taking India very seriously because it’s disproportionately big,” said GV Giri, head of research at brokerage IIFL. There’s “a greater eagerness of big franchises to lock up deals in India and have more publicity, more campaigns.”

India’s young population, rising incomes and the spread of multiplex chains have encouraged US studios to invest more in the market.

Studios like Paramount and Universal now dub their movies not only into Hindi but to other regional languages such as Tamil. Lionsgate, which is behind franchises such as The Hunger Games, has followed US rivals in opening an office in India.

However, industry analysts say that apart from superhero smashes and select animations such as Disney’s Lion King remake, other genres of American film still struggle. For drama and comedy, Indian audiences prefer local productions with familiar stars and themes.

Despite the boom in ticket sales, revenues for Hollywood’s biggest releases remain tiny in India compared with the US or neighbouring China, where the latest Avengers instalment raked in about 10 times more.

The average ticket price at an Indian single-screen theatre in 2018 was roughly $0.70, against almost $10 in the US. Tickets in China typically cost about $5-$6.

The larger opportunity for the US studios lies in harnessing the popularity of their films for other areas of commerce such as merchandise sales, according to Rakesh Jariwala, media and entertainment partner at EY in Mumbai.

Indian studios have also fought off encroaching Hollywood giants with a flurry of their own epic blockbusters. The 2017 sequel to the historical battle movie Baahubali, for example, became one of the highest grossing Indian films of all time.

Given India’s young population, Mr Giri expects the focus on action and special effects to pay off for both local and international studios.

“When I was a kid I couldn’t get more than one movie a decade on Superman,” said Mr Giri. “This would have been a dream for us . . . Today’s kids have it all laid out for them.”

Hollywood encroaches on Bollywood turf

Top 10 films in India by ticket sales, 2015-19

Rank	Film
1	Baahubali 2
2	Dangal
3	Avengers: Endgame
4	2.0
5	Padmaavat
6	Uri — The Surgical Strike
7	Sanju
8	The Jungle Book
9	Kabir Singh
10	Avengers: Infinity War

Source: BookMyShow