New Delhi: At ₹52 crore, Marvel’s blockbuster superhero flick 'Avengers: Endgame' notched up the third highest opening day of all time in India, after war epic 'Baahubali 2: The Conclusion' and Rajinikanth-starrer '2.0'. Given that Bollywood dominates the country’s popular culture and collective consciousness, it is more than a little surprising that the top three openers of India’s movie business are all non-Hindi language films. At last reported figures of Rs. 351 crore, 'Endgame' had already surpassed the business of big-ticket Bollywood films like 'Tiger Zinda Hai' ( ₹339 crore), PK ( ₹337 crore) and Sultan ( ₹300.67 crore). “This is definitely a wake-up call for Hindi cinema," said Rahul Puri, managing director, Mukta Arts and Mukta A2 Cinemas. “Filmmakers need to understand that people have a lot of choice (in terms of entertainment) now." Puri said 'Endgame', along with films like 'Baahubali', has proven what the fundamentals of producing a blockbuster are — people need to be able to laugh, cry and cheer in a movie theatre, characters need to be real and relatable and then language does not matter. Film distributor and exhibitor Akshaye Rathi called it a combination of content with global appeal that ensures wide reach, adding that it’s a matter of time before Hindi cinema notched up similar numbers too. “There are two aspects to this - one, how appealing your story is and two, how well it can be localised or presented to audiences," said Bikram Duggal, head of studio entertainment at Disney India, distributors of 'Endgame'. The first reiterates the importance of creating enduring franchises with characters that fans invest deeply in, over the years, irrespective of language. Duggal said great stories could come from and connect anywhere, just like 'Dangal', an Indian story, did in China. With 22 movies in 11 years, Marvel is a universe that didn’t really need to call out its fans for 'Endgame'. Also read: ‘Avengers: Endgame’ is the highest grosser of 2019 so far in India To be sure, Bollywood seems to have learnt the lesson and is doing its bit in creating franchises. Filmmaker Rohit Shetty has designed a fun cop universe which will include Ranveer Singh’s 'Simmba', Ajay Devgn’s 'Singham' and Akshay Kumar’s upcoming 'Sooryavanshi', all three feeding off each other. “Franchises create suspense in a way that fans get connected and they make their decision to view the next film based on the same," said Devang Sampat, director, India Strategic Initiatives, Cinépolis India. Both 'Baahubali: The Beginning', and 'Avengers: Infinity War' ended with a cliffhanger that drove people in hordes to the next film. Second is the idea of building relatability — apart from dubbing into Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, Disney got composer AR Rahman to compose local language anthems for Endgame, popular Tamil writer and director A.R. Murugadoss was roped in to write the Tamil dialogues and superstars Vijay Sethupathi, Andrea Jeremiah and Rana Daggubati to voice for characters. “Audiences need to be able to suspend the disbelief that the film has not been made in Hindi," Duggal said. Further, released in only 2,800 screens, 'Endgame' seems to have shown Bollywood, that normally releases big films in at least 4,000 screens, the importance of marginal utility. That makes sense given that most Bollywood films make 80% of their earnings from the top 500 screens and are known to go for unreasonably wide releases. However, some industry experts say ticket rates for the film were severely hiked, a feat the team could have only pulled off with a massively loyal fan base like that. “They have shown that there is some logic in cutting supply, besides the value of repeat viewing which doesn’t happen in Hindi," Puri said. “Of course it’s been a reasonably good year for Bollywood too but here, we’re talking of something bigger." Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now! ! Topics<doc-sep>Marvel fans are finding themselves in a virtual queue to grab tickets for the highly anticipated superhero film Avengers: Endgame. BookMyShow has witnessed a record advance ticket sale with one million tickets sold in just over a day. BookMyShow witnessed a peak of 18 tickets per second, even before the film releases in cinemas on April 26 in India in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Ashish Saksena, Chief Operating Officer - Cinemas, BookMyShow, said in a statement issued on Monday evening: “We expect Avengers: Endgame to break more records as cinemas continue to open the advance bookings.” Avengers: Endgame is the 22nd film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the latest after Captain Marvel, which released last month. The film stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson and Brie Larson, amongst others. “Avengers: Endgame is not just a movie, it’s an epic culmination of a decade-long journey which the fans have taken with us across 22 films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The phenomenal interest shown by audiences across the country, is testament of how this is one of the most anticipated movies for the fans and we can’t wait for them to watch it,” said Bikram Duggal, Head - Studio Entertainment, Disney India. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted on Monday: “Avengers: Endgame advance booking is unheard of, unimaginable and unprecedented. Much better than several Hindi biggies that opened in 2018 and 2019.” #AvengersEndgame advance booking is unheard of, unimaginable and unprecedented... Much, much better than several #Hindi biggies that opened in 2018 and 2019... Eyes a record-breaking, historic start in #India... Dear BO records, get ready to be smashed and shattered! — taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) April 22, 2019 The interest has been more in metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai. Rahul Kadbet, Vice President Programming, Carnival Cinemas, told IANS: “Around 2.25 lakh tickets have been sold which is about 74 per cent of the capacity for weekend. We have 1000+ shows per day for the movie in over 100 cities. Maximum tickets were sold in Delhi/NCR and Mumbai.” The rush for tickets for the film, which will show supervillain Thanos engaging in an epic battle with superheroes like Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, was anticipated. Also read: Road to Avengers Endgame: Only 5 Marvel Cinematic Universe films will go down in history, the rest are indistinguishable Rajender Singh Jyala, Chief Programming Officer, INOX Leisure Ltd. said: “As anticipated, across the country, the shows of Avengers: Endgame are almost sold out in a very short time. The first day advance sales have been unprecedented.” The craze for the film has also made some fly to different cities. Imphal-based engineer Sanjay Nongmaithem told IANS: “I have been following the series since its beginning in 2008 with Iron Man so, I want to see how it culminates. My eight-year-old daughter, Gracy, is also a fan of the Avengers. In Manipur, our theatres don’t screen Bollywood or Hollywood films so we are left with no choice but to fly to Guwahati, which is nearby.” One Twitter also posted a request on Twitter to the film’s directors -- the Russo Brothers. “I am from India and a huge Marvel fan. In Silchar, Assam, there are two movie halls but none are screening Avengers.... Help us.” Follow @htshowbiz for more ott:10<doc-sep>
Avengers: Endgame has not only become the biggest Hollywood grosser in India but is also sneaking up on some of Bollywood’s biggest hits. The concluding film in the decade-long Marvel cinematic universe journey, which released on April 26, garnered over Rs326 crore ($46.6 million) at the box office by the end of its 12th day in theatres across the country, according to a May 08 report on Bollywood news site Koimoi. This stellar performance has put the movie among the top 10 domestic earners of all-time in India. Rank Movie title Net India Box Office collection (Rs crores) 1 Bahubali 2—The Conclusion (2017) 511.3 2 Dangal (2016) 387.39 3 Sanju (2018) 341.22 4 PK (2014) 339.5 5 Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) 339.16 6 Avengers: Endgame (2019)* 326.95 7 Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) 320.34 8 Sultan (2016) 300.45 9 Padmaavat (2018) 300 10 Dhoom 3 (2013) 280.25 Source: Koimoi *Still running “The demand for tickets has been sky-high since advance bookings opened on BookMyShow, with cinemas adding new shows every day to match fans’ rising demands,” Ashish Saksena, COO of the online ticketing platform’s cinema division, told Quartz. “So far, BookMyShow has sold about eight million tickets and counting, making it the highest in-demand Hollywood film in India.” And this reflects just 48% of the net box office collection. The sequel to last year’s Avengers: Infinity War was highly anticipated. “The phenomenon around the entire film series has been very well cultivated by Marvel, by introducing one character at a time. They were patient enough, taking 11 years and 22 films to deliver a conclusion like Avengers: Endgame,” Saksena added. Though the actual numbers are still under wraps, Disney’s marketing expenditure for Endgame is one of the highest across the industry, the company’s head of studio entertainment, Bikram Duggal, told daily newspaper Mint. Releasing in multiple languages also gave a boost. “Disney puts a lot of effort in dubbing. If you watch Endgame in Hindi, it is as hilarious in Hindi as it is in English. Because they don’t translate but rewrite the dialogues,” Amit Sharma, the managing director of Miraj Cinemas, a cinema exhibition company focussed on bringing multiplexes to small town India, told Moneycontrol. “Disney understands markets far better than its competitors.” However, viewers took to Twitter to say that the Hindi and Tamil versions were not up to the mark. Some of them watched it out of desperation when tickets for English shows—especially at the few IMAX ones—were sold out. They returned to watch the English shows later. Ardent fans have seen it multiple times. The breakout success of the movie smashed two myths about Indian cinema, according to a May 04 tweet by trade analyst Taran Adarsh. First, it is widely believed that public festivals drive traffic. For years, Bollywood stars Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan have released their movies on Diwali and Eid-ul-Fitr, respectively. Avengers hit the screens on a non-festive day and still romped home in style. Secondly, Endgame’s success comes despite a smaller screen count. Avengers had just 2,845 screens versus big Bollywood releases that go right to the interiors of the country, playing on upwards of 4,000 or 4,500 screens at times, Adarsh noted. However, it did help that there were no big Bollywood flicks clashing with Endgame in its first week. The question now is, with Karan Johar’s Student of the Year 2 releasing today (May 10), can the superhero franchise continue its astronomical run?