Akshay Kumar’s Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty recently posted the fifth highest opening weekend gross for a Bollywood movie in North America in 2014. That sounds good, but a closer look at the numbers reveals a downward trend in Kumar’s box office viability in the U.S. and Canada since 2007.
The other curious aspect of this trend is that two of Kumar’s highest earning films of recent years, both in terms of total gross and opening weekend average, opened on fewer than 100 screens. In September, 2012, OMG: Oh My God ($914,992 total) debuted on 70 screens, earning an average of $4,858 per screen in its opening weekend. Several months later, Special 26 ($1,078,960 total) debuted on 85 screens, earning an average of $5,438 per screen.
(The Kumar movie that released in between OMG and Special 26, Khiladi 786, debuted on 115 screens, from which it earned an average of $1,991 per screen. Its total gross was less than $400,000.)
There’s a disconnect between the Kumar movies that distributors and theaters think the North American audience wants to see and the films that the audience actually wants to see. Based on earnings, North Americans like Kumar best as part of an ensemble or as a supporting character, and less as a solo leading man. And they don’t like him paired with Sonakshi Sinha. The duo has made five movies together since mid-2012, and none has performed as well as their first, Rowdy Rathore. Even that film earned well short of $1 million ($777,373 to be exact).
It’s only a matter of time before theaters realize that their screens could be put to better use.
Sources: All figures courtesy of Box Office Mojo and Bollywood Hungama.
What a research, good job
Thank you very much! 🙂
impeccable analysis and conclusion. Those folks at bollywoodhungama.com should take a lesson from you.
Thanks a bunch, Amin! 🙂
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