Year of blockbusters set to end with record BO collection

Bollywood movies' domestic mop-up tops pre-pandemic mark, riding on four ₹500 cr-plus films

- SURAJEET DAS GUPTA

2023 was a blockbuster year for Bollywood, with producers not only crossing domestic box-office collections of the pre-pandemic levels of calendar year (CY2019), when it hit a record ₹11,000 crore, but also likely to end the year with a more than 10 per cent increase over it, or with an additional of ₹1100 core.

2 In CY2022 box office (BO) collections were slightly lower than pre-pandemic levels around ₹10,600 crore, according to industry estimates.

However, the average occupancy percentage across screens this year has been 5 per cent lower than in CY19, although industry experts say that it is likely to reach similar levels next year.