How Much is Moviegoing Worth?

PVR Inox top boss Sanjeev Bijli addresses the question everyone's been asking, amidst conversations on overpriced tickets, overpriced popcorn and endless ads

- Sanjeev Bijli

PVR Inox executive director Sanjeev Kumar Bijli doesn't believe ticket prices are a cause for the decline in theatregoing and footfalls. “If you check into an expensive hotel and get great service, you don’t think about the price. It’s when you get bad service that you question the value for money,” says Bijli. This, despite several filmmakers being vocal about how ticket prices have become prohibitively expensive.

And despite the doom and gloom narratives surrounding the health of the film industry, Bijli is surprisingly optimistic about footfalls. “Last year it was 130 million at our cinemas. This year we should be reaching 150 million,” he says.

The state of the box office certainly paints a hopeful picture. Despite 2025 being a disappointing year for Indian cinema tentpoles (War 2, Coolie, Thamma), according to the India Box Office Report: October 2025 published by media consultancy firm Ormax Media last month, the cumulative box office for 2025 thus far is 18 per cent higher than the same period in 2024.

Ormax also estimates that 2025 may become the best-ever year at the Indian box office (2023 holds the current record).

Bijli spoke to The Hollywood Reporter India about ticket prices, the health of the industry, and why 2025 might be the year of sleeper hits.

Edited excerpt from the conversation.

THR INDIA: What do you make of the year so far in terms of box office?