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Bollywood Box Office: April 24-26

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Fox Star Studios probably wishes the North American box office reports for Mr. X would disappear, because the numbers are awful. In its second weekend, Mr. X earned $7,572 from 17 theaters ($445 average), bringing its total earnings to $48,213. Considering Mr. X‘s opening weekend average of $400 per screen and Week 2’s $445, each of those stalwart 17 theaters will be lucky to have earned $1,000 total from ten days of showing of Mr. X.

As in its opening weekend, Mr. X proved vastly more popular in Canada in Week 2 than in the US. It earned $6,283 from ten Canadian theaters ($628 average), but just $1,289 from seven American theaters ($184 average).

On the other hand, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! performed very well in its fourth weekend. DBB brought in another $20,846 from 11 theaters ($1,895 average), bringing its reported North American total to $598,376 (though I suspect that’s a bit low). What’s notable about DBB‘s fourth weekend earnings is that they are more than double that of Badlapur, which reported the next highest fourth weekend returns this year ($7,905). Eight Hindi movies have run for at least four weeks in North American theaters in 2015.

Other Hindi films showing in North America during the weekend of April 24-26, 2015:

  • Nanak Shah Fakir: Week 2; $14,656 from 9 theaters ($1,628 average); $90,901 total
  • Dharam Sankat Mein: Week 3; $2,179 from 4 theaters ($545 average); $12,809 total

Source: Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

Box Office Analysis: Yash Raj Films

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The recent release of Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! inspired me to take a look at the US box office history for all of the Yash Raj Films releases from the past decade. I based my analysis on data provided by Box Office Mojo and Bollywood Hungama (which in turn uses information from Rentrak).

Looking at the total grosses of all films, it looks like there’s a slight trend upward in total box office, over time. (The orange line represents a simple linear regression of all data.)


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You might notice that one film did disproportionately well in late 2013. That’s Dhoom 3, which raked in about $8M. Remove this outlier from the equation, and the other YRF releases are actually on a gentle decline in total box office take.


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Despite the stagnancy of total box office dollars, YRF’s widest releases are being shown in more US theaters than ever.


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A flat box office and more theaters means that opening weekend averages per screen are also trending downward, even when including Dhoom 3 in the calculations. Blockbusters have been immune to the trend, but the underperformers are doing worse than ever. The last four Yash Raj movies released in 2014 (Bewakoofiyaan, Mardaani, Daawat-e-Ishq, and Kill Dil) each came in at under $2,000 per screen.


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Taking into account that average ticket prices have also climbed almost $2 (from $6.41 in 2005 to $8.17 in 2014, according to Box Office Mojo), this lack of growth in box office also means that fewer tickets are being sold for each Yash Raj Films release, on average.

The good news for YRF is that Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! bucked recent trends, averaging about $4,000 per screen in US theaters in its opening weekend. That puts it on par with films from the studio’s most reliable period, 2007-08.

For the remainder of 2015, Yash Raj Films has only one film officially planned for release: Fan, starring Shahrukh Khan. Yet Fan‘s release date has been changed multiple times, and it’s not currently listed on Bollywood Hungama’s release calendar. The surprise success of the romantic comedy Dum Laga Ke Haisha in India prompted Yash Raj Films to create an international trailer for the movie, renaming it My Big Fat Bride. There’s a chance that it could open in US while Fan is completed — though its star, Ayushmann Khurrana, isn’t a guaranteed money maker like Shahrukh Khan.

Even if Yash Raj Films doesn’t release another movie in 2015, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! has nudged the studio’s fortunes in the US back in the right direction.

Author’s note: My thanks to Box Office Mojo, Bollywood Hungama, and Rentrak for the raw information. Note: there’s no reliable box office data for a pair of 2010 releases — Badmaash Company and Pyaar Impossible — so I couldn’t take them into account in this analysis.

The charts were generated by my husband, Greg Gibson, using the d3.js JavaScript library. Visit his GitHub site to view more YRF charts or to peruse the project’s source code.

Finally, here’s a table of estimated box office data for all YRF releases since 2005:

Title Total Gross Max Screens Opening AVG Release Date
Bunty Aur Babli 942756 51 8544 Fri May 27 2005
Salaam Namaste 1413283 63 8014 Fri Sep 09 2005
Neal ‘n’ Nikki 111551 44 1705 Fri Dec 09 2005
Fanaa 2105352 72 10459 Fri May 26 2006
Dhoom 2 2643586 63 15540 Fri Nov 24 2006
Kabul Express 302458 50 2852 Fri Dec 15 2006
Ta Ra Rum Pum 872643 85 5001 Fri Apr 27 2007
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom 695157 83 5485 Fri Jun 15 2007
Chak De India 1120404 62 5676 Fri Aug 10 2007
Laaga Chunari Mein Daag 675102 60 5350 Fri Oct 12 2007
Aaja Nachle 484108 66 3902 Fri Nov 30 2007
Tashan 457380 75 4016 Fri Apr 25 2008
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic 365401 68 2671 Fri Jun 27 2008
Bachna Ae Haseeno 702166 71 4541 Fri Aug 15 2008
Roadside Romeo 55202 29 1440 Fri Oct 24 2008
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi 2078956 83 11096 Fri Dec 12 2008
New York 997437 60 7795 Fri Jun 26 2009
Dil Bole Hadippa! 644046 54 6508 Fri Sep 18 2009
Rocket Singh 164649 70 2352 Fri Dec 11 2009
Band Baaja Baaraat 71374 32 1369 Fri Dec 10 2010
Mere Brother Ki Dulhan 496172 74 5448 Fri Sep 09 2011
Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl 222019 80 2775 Fri Dec 09 2011
Ek Tha Tiger 2347774 120 9495 Wed Aug 15 2012
Jab Tak Hai Jaan 3047539 164 7973 Tue Nov 13 2012
Aurangzeb 149000 62 1468 Fri May 17 2013
Shuddh Desi Romance 641000 116 2980 Fri Sep 06 2013
Dhoom 3 8090250 239 14320 Fri Dec 20 2013
Gunday 887675 150 3656 Fri Feb 14 2014
Bewakoofiyaan 106800 66 1026 Fri Mar 14 2014
Mardaani 393619 86 1965 Fri Aug 22 2014
Daawat-e-Ishq 385415 113 1814 Fri Sep 19 2014
Kill Dil 246107 87 1977 Fri Nov 14 2014

In Theaters: April 24, 2015

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No new Hindi movies are opening in the Chicago area on Friday, April 24, 2015, and those that remain are few and far between. The Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville holds over Mr. X in 3D for a second week. The AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington gives a fourth week to Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!.

Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area include the Telugu movie Dohchay at the Muvico Rosemont 18 in Rosemont and MovieMax Cinemas in Niles, which also carries the Malayalam movies Bhaskar the Rascal and Oru Vadakkan Selfie. OK Kanmani (Tamil) and OK Bangaram (Telugu) get a second week at both MovieMax and the Cinemark at Seven Bridges in Woodridge.

Bollywood Box Office: April 17-19

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Mr. X wasn’t just invisible onscreen, but at the North American box office as well. Emraan Hashmi’s latest tanked hard in its opening weekend, from April 17-19, 2015. According to Box Office Mojo, Mr. X earned $30,097 from 52 theaters ($579 average). Considering the higher ticket prices that accompanied 3D showings of the film in some theaters, that total is atrocious.

The opening weekend figures for Mr. X reported by Bollywood Hungama are broken out by country, and that’s where the story gets really interesting. Of the $24,806 from 62 North American theaters ($400 average) Bollywood Hungama reports for Mr. X, $13,528 came from 52 theaters in the U.S. and $11,278 came from 10 theaters in Canada. That means that Mr. X was vastly more popular in Canada, with per-screen average earnings of $1,128 compared to an average of just $260 in the U.S.

Further proof of Mr. X‘s failure is that it got beat by another Hindi movie that didn’t even have an IMDb page until five days after it opened in theaters. Nanak Shah Fakir posted opening weekend earnings of $47,727 from 50 theaters ($955 average).

Also trouncing Mr. X was Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, now in its third week of release. According to Bollywood Hungama, it added another $50,038 from 31 theaters ($1,614 average). Bollywood Hungama reports total North American earnings for DBB of $568,398, which is less than the total earnings Box Office Mojo reported for the movie after its second weekend ($579,055). However, Box Office Mojo doesn’t presently have any DBB Week 3 data at all. My hunch is that DBB has earned more than $600,000 in North America by this point, but I can’t prove it.

Somehow, Dharam Sankat Mein lingered for a second weekend in six North American theaters, adding another $1,413 ($236 average) to bring its total to $9,948.

Sources: Box Office Mojo and Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

Opening April 17: Mr. X

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One new Hindi film opens in the Chicago area on April 17, 2015. Emraan Hashmi plays a vigilante with the power of invisibility in the sci-fi thriller Mr. X.

Mr. X opens on Friday at MovieMax Cinemas in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. All three are carrying the movie in 2D, but the Cantera is showing Mr. X in 3D as well. The movie has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 15 min.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! gets a third week at the South Barrington 30, Cantera 17, and AMC Showplace Niles 12 in Niles. MovieMax is holding over Dharam Sankat Mein for a second weekend.

Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area this weekend include: OK Kanmani (Tamil) at the Muvico Rosemont 18 in Rosemont and MovieMax, which carries the Telugu version — OK Bangaram — as well; Son of Sathyamurthy (Telugu) at MovieMax and the Rosemont 18; Patta Patta Singhan Da Vairi (Punjabi) at the Century Stratford Square in Bloomingdale; and Ori Devudoy (Telugu), Kanchana 2 (Tamil), Oru Vadakkan Selfie (Malayalam), and Ennum Eppozhum (Malayalam) at MovieMax.

Bollywood Box Office: April 10-12

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With no new Hindi-language competitors in U.S. theaters during the weekend of April 10-12, 2015, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! continued to perform very well. In its second weekend in theaters, the period thriller earned $158,227 from 80 theaters ($1,978 average), bringing its total U.S. earnings to $579,055. Its business declined just 53.3% from its first weekend to its second, second-best for the year behind NH10‘s 47% decline.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! would need to earn another $152,000 here in order to overtake Baby as North America’s highest-earning Bollywood release of 2015. Even with good word of mouth, a high IMDb rating of 8.3, and only two likely Hindi releases in the next two weeks — Mr. X and Margarita with a Straw — an additional $152,000 seems unlikely.

Update: Bollywood Hungama posted some additional earnings figures from the weekend. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know about Dharam Sankat Mein‘s limited North American release. It opened in 18 theaters, but only earned $6,580 ($366 average). Yikes.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Hollywood directorial debut Broken Horses didn’t fare much better. It earned just $19,528 from 40 theaters ($488 average). Yikes, again!

In its fifth weekend in theaters, NH10 earned another $1,683 from two theaters ($842 average), bringing its North American total to $319,872.

Sources: Box Office Mojo and Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

Opening April 10: Broken Horses

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While no new Hindi movies are opening in the Chicago area on April 10, 2015, we are getting a new film by a Bollywood director. Vidhu Vinod Chopra — director of Eklavya: The Royal Guard and producer of PK — makes his Hollywood directorial debut with Broken Horses, starring Anton Yelchin, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Thomas Jane.

Broken Horses opens on Friday in three local theaters: AMC River East 21 in Chicago, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. Tellingly, these are all theaters that regularly carry Bollywood movies, so don’t expect this to be a wide, 600+ screen release. Even without a wide national release or huge marketing campaign, Broken Horses could appeal to moviegoers who are undecided on what to see when they head to the theater, thanks to its easy sales pitch: “It’s about brothers involved in a drug war, and it stars Vincent D’Onofrio and the guy who plays Chekov in the new Star Trek movies.”

After a great first weekend, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! gets a second week at the South Barrington 30, Cantera 17, and AMC Showplace Niles 12 in Niles.

Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area this weekend include Son of Satyamurthy (Telugu) at the Muvico Rosemont 18 in Rosemont, Cinemark at Seven Bridges in Woodridge, and MovieMax, which also carries the Malayalam film Oru Vadakkan Selfie.

Bollywood Box Office: April 3-5

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Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (DBB, henceforth) is off to a great start in the United States. During the weekend of April 3-5, 2015, it earned $335,550 from 84 theaters (none of which were in Canada, unfortunately). Its per-screen average of $3,994 is the second best opening weekend average of the year behind Baby, which is the only 2015 film to earn more money in its first weekend.

[Box Office Guru reports slightly different numbers for DBB than the Rentrak totals above: $338,637 from 82 theaters, $4,130 average.]

DBB‘s real claim to fame is that it earned more in its first weekend than three other 2015 releases — besides Baby — that opened in more theaters: Shamitabh ($215,512 from 137 theaters), Tevar ($125,908 from 125 theaters), and Badlapur ($225,250 from 92 theaters).

With only the mildest of competition hitting theaters this coming weekend — and with the distinct possibility that no new Hindi films will open in North America at all — DBB has the potential to hold up well through its second weekend. It also helps that DBB is the best film released so far this year. A final total of $650,000 would be great, but reaching Baby‘s $730,288 total seems unlikely.

In its fourth weekend of release, NH10 added another $7,905 from eight theaters ($988 average) to bring its North American total earnings to $316,633.

Source: Box Office Guru and Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

Movie Review: Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2015)

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Detective_Byomkesh_Bakshy_poster4 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent the movie at iTunes
Buy the DVD at Amazon

Reviewer’s note: The character of Byomkesh Bakshy (originally spelled “Bakshi”) is a creation of Bengali author Sharadindu Bandhopadhyay, who wrote thirty-two stories about the detective between 1932 and 1970. I have never read any of Bandhopadhyay’s stories, so this review will not compare the original literary detective to Banerjee’s updated film version. I am treating Banerjee’s detective as a completely separate entity.

Director Dibakar Banerjee’s Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is a visually stunning mystery that’s worth watching for its sumptuous style alone — though it also has much more going for it.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! opens with a brutal drug deal gone bad, before shifting forward in time to Calcutta, 1943. Byomkesh (Sushant Singh Rajput) is an unassuming young man with a reputation for solving mysteries. He’s quick to correct anyone who calls him a detective; he just pursues the truth.

A bespectacled young man, Ajit (Anand Tiwari), asks Byomkesh for help finding his missing father, but Byomkesh is dismissive. The man was most likely murdered for being mixed up in something shady or ran off with a woman, Byomkesh tells Ajit, who punches him before storming out.

When Byomkesh’s girlfriend confesses that she’s marrying a man with better job prospects, he apologizes to Ajit and takes on the case. Clues lead Byomkesh to a boarding house in another part of Calcutta, run by clever Dr. Guha (Neeraj Kabi). The search for clues takes a dangerous turn when Byomkesh finds a connection between Ajit’s missing father an a powerful politician.

The backdrop to Byomkesh’s investigation is a city on edge due to repeated bombings of strategic British targets by the Japanese. My Midwestern American primary education on World War II included no references to the effects of the war on British-controlled India, so I found the the film’s setting fascinating. As soon as the air raid sirens sounded during Byomkesh’s first night in the boarding house, I was hooked.

Banerjee takes the time and place into consideration in his shots. Shadows pervade, since overhead interior lights and bright streetlamps wouldn’t have been common during that era, and particularly not during wartime. The brightest shots in the film take place on the set of a movie starring Anguri Devi (Swastika Mukherjee, who looks every bit the bombshell).

The sound design of the film is equally as effective as the lighting. Urban hubbub stands in for a background score, and the specter of the air raid siren looms. When Byomkesh tentatively approaches a dormant furnace during his investigation, a ghostly mechanical thrum accompanies his steps.

When Banerjee does employ music with lyrics, the songs have a contemporary feel, be it Indian music or thrash metal. The juxtaposition of the period visuals with modern music heightens the emotional impact. Banerjee isn’t going for total authenticity. His representation of Calcutta is highly stylized, and the contemporary music suits it.

The music also makes the film’s graphic violence feel more appropriate. While there isn’t a lot of violence, that which exists is bloody and brutally administered. It’s shocking, and perhaps not for the faint of heart (and it’s especially inappropriate for children).

Yet what also makes it appropriate is Byomkesh’s reaction to this violence. He abhors it and feels responsible for those harmed even indirectly by his investigation. It’s one aspect of Byomkesh’s personality that makes him such a great character. He’s an ordinary guy in a pop culture era when trend demands that Western movie and TV detectives be quirky or socially maladroit. His only quirk is that he can’t let go of a case until he discovers the truth, even when it puts his life in danger.

Rajput is terrific, giving an understated performance that blends with the story rather than drawing attention to itself. During the course of the film, Byomkesh and Ajit develop a nice working friendship, and Tiwari matches Rajput’s style well.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is ripe for a sequel, and it hope it gets several. A great lead character and a stunningly rendered Calcutta make Bakshy’s world one I want to revisit over and over again.

Links

  • Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! at Wikipedia
  • Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! at IMDb

Opening April 3: Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!

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Finally, a new Hindi film is coming to Chicago area theaters! Sushant Singh Rajput stars in Detective Byomkesh Baskhy!, releasing April 3, 2015. It looks quite cool.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! opens on Friday at the AMC Showplace Niles 12 in Niles, MovieMax Cinemas in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. It has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 28 min.

The only other Hindi film showing locally this weekend is NH10, which gets a fourth week at the South Barrington 30.

Other Indian films showing in the Chicago area this weekend include Jil (Telugu w/no subtitles) at the Cinemark at Seven Bridges in Woodridge and MovieMax, which also carries Ennum Eppozhum (Malayalam), Nannbenda (Tamil), Komban (Tamil), and Yevade Subramanyam (Telugu).