Bollywood’’s Best January-March Period Till Date

Stagnant box office and falling footfalls have been the story of the Bollywood box office for the last 3-4 years. But the first quarter of 2017 has brought in good news. 2017 has seen the best-ever performance for the domestic business from Hindi films released in the Jan-March period, with total nett box office of Rs. 580 crore. 2014 held the earlier record, clocking 525 crore in the same period.

The chart below shows year-on-year performance of the first quarter since 2012.

Note that the numbers are based on films released in this quarter, and not on revenue collected in this period, which could also come from December releases. Three 100-crore films (Raees, Badrinath Ki Dulhania and Jolly LLB 2) enabled this performance.

The first quarter has contributed only 17% of the total annual box office business over 2012-16. Hence, it is often not the quarter that decides how strong the year will be. But Bollywood will be hoping that the momentum created at the start of 2017 continues through the year.