PVR Innox’s losses at shopping mall chain ₹Box office revenue for the first quarter of FY25 was Rs 1,366 crore, down from Rs 441 crore in the same period last year. Cinema attendance fell 10.4% to 30.4 million as filmmakers postponed major releases due to the Lok Sabha elections and the Indian Premier League.
It was a generally weak quarter despite smaller successes like “Munja,” “Mr & Mrs Mahi” and “Srikanth.” Cinema ticket sales revenue fell 14.5% from Q1FY24, while food and beverage sales fell 6.1%.
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The general elections in April and May lasted 44 days, the second longest in Indian history, which led many studios to postpone film releases, resulting in a 13% drop in film releases in the quarter compared to the same period last year.
Also read: Can PVR Inox turn things around?
“The number of blockbuster movies also declined significantly this quarter,” PVR Innox said in a statement. ₹“We have crossed the Rs 100-crore mark, compared to seven last year. Last year’s writers’ and actors’ strike impacted Hollywood releases, but we are hopeful that the Hollywood line-up will improve significantly in the second half of FY25.”
The company opened 50 new screens during the quarter and closed 14 underperforming screens, resulting in a net addition of 36. The company now has 1,754 screens across 361 cinemas in 113 cities across India and Sri Lanka.
Focus on Chalki
Ajay Bijli, managing director, PVR INOX Ltd, said in a statement, “The second quarter has started on a positive note with the continued success of ‘Kalki’ and an exciting line-up across various languages going forward. We do not expect any significant events to disrupt the release schedule in the near future. Further, Hollywood is expected to recover as the impact of the writers’ and actors’ strike has started to fade. We expect our performance to improve significantly in the remaining three quarters of the fiscal.”
Also read: PVR Inox needs more than Kalki in blockbuster downturn
“Kalki 2898 AD,” a period drama starring Prabhas, Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan, which released in late June, accounted for about 16 percent of the quarter’s box office takings in just four days, according to PVR Inox.
Upcoming Hindi films include Stree 2 starring Shraddha Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao; Deva starring Shahid Kapoor; Jigra starring Alia Bhatt; Bhool Bhulaiya 3 starring Kartik Aaryan; Singham Again starring Ajay Devgn; and Baby John starring Varun Dhawan. Allu Arjun’s Pushpa 2, GOAT starring Vijay Thalapathy and Kanguva starring Suriya are some other big titles scheduled for the coming months.
Also read: Multiplex cinema chains renegotiate rents, capital expenditure terms as business plummets
