Christmas Weekend Analysis: Bollywood Box Office

It’s the biggest weekend of the year and we have two films lined up for release in 2015. Rohit Shetty’s Dilwale and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani will be battling it out for box office supremacy. But the reason both makers want this weekend is because Christmas has been the most lucrative weekend for film business – better than the other two festivals, Eid and Diwali.

Back in 2008 when Aamir Khan released Ghajini, the period was considered to be dull for film business. It gets freezing cold in major cities like New Delhi and surrounding cities of the National Capital Region and the other centres in the North are also affected by the cold wave. But Aamir Khan came, he saw and he conquered the weekend.

A combination of his stardom and quality films resulted in him delivering the highest grosser of all time – every single time he released a film during Christmas, the film went on to be a All Time Blockbuster.

Check out the list of Christmas releases since 2008.

• 2008: Ghajini 116 crore – All Time Blockbuster
• 2009: 3 Idiots 202 crore – All Time Blockbuster (74% growth over previous year)
• 2010: Tees Maar Khan 61 crore – Semi Hit (70% year-on-year drop)
• 2011: Don 2 112 crore – Hit (83% drop from 2010, 44% drop from 2009)
• 2012: Dabangg 2 155 crore – Blockbuster (38% growth from 2011, 23% drop from 2009)
• 2013: Dhoom 3 285 crore – All Time Blockbuster (85% growth)
• 2014: PK 341 crore – All Time Blockbuster (18% growth)

Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar released their films during the same weekend, but both weren’t very successful. Salman Khan did better, but Dabangg 2 wasn’t as big a success as the first film and Salman couldn’t quite match upto to the success of Aamir films.

Aamir and Yash Raj Films started a new trend in 2013, when they released Dhoom 3 a week before Christmas, giving their film 3 open weeks at the box office. The result was even better, as Dhoom 3 went on to amass Rs 288 crore net in India and was a 600 crore plus grosser worldwide. A year later, with a similar release date, the 3 Idiots duo of Aamir and Rajkumar Hirani returned and struck box office gold yet again. The numbers were simply mind-boggling.

This year, with two movies releasing in the same weekend and 3 open weeks at the box office, the stakes are very high (combined cost is nearly Rs 250 crore) and the expectations even higher. Can Dilwale and Bajirao Mastani combined, generate business in excess of Rs 400 crore in India? How will the two films perform overseas? Will there be year-on-year growth – if not, the trade will be disappointed if the two films combined can’t collect as much as PK did last year.