Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame is inching towards the Rs 300-crore mark after it collected Rs 157.2 crore (net after tax) at the Indian box office in the first weekend of its release. Given the demand, the good reviews and word of mouth, distributors and exhibitors feel the movie is set to enter the Rs 300-crore club within 10 days of its release.
Endgame has marginally surpassed Avengers: Inifnity War’s (2018) first-week collection (Rs 156.64) in just three days. This also puts the movie in the league of some of the most successful Indian movies.
Suniel Wadhwa, independent distributor and box office analyst, says while the film was expected to do well at the box office, the collections have been better than expected. “Earlier, it was unconceivable that a Hollywood film with dubbed versions could deliver a collection above Rs 100 crore in the first weekend. Today, it’s a reality.”
“Forecasting Endgame’s lifetime collection is near impossible at this point. However, should Endgame deliver a similar multiplier as Infinity War (first weekend Rs 94.3 crore), it seems safe to assume this movie will become the first Hollywood film to surpass Rs 300 crore at the Indian box office.” Bollywood has seen eight movies breach the mark, and all of them were released in at least 4,000 screens at the time of launch.
Released in around 2,800 screens across multiple exhibition formats (2D, 3D, IMAX 3D, and 3D 4DX) in three Indian languages — Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu — besides English, the movie made Rs 53.1 crore on the first day, becoming the highest opener of the year so far, and the highest Hollywood opener in India. It is now second only to SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali 2: The Conclusion in terms of the opening day collections in the country across languages. The record for the highest Hollywood opening was previously held by Avengers: Infinity War at Rs 31 crore.
“The massive response by audience across the country is a testimony of how emotionally invested the Marvel fans are in the Avengers franchise. They eagerly waited to watch the culmination of the journey and their love for Marvel characters is clearly evident,” says Bikram Duggal, head - studio entertainment, Disney India.
The film held onto business on Saturday with a collection of Rs 51.4 crore, and followed it up with a marginal jump in collections on Sunday at Rs 52.7 crore. With this, it also became one of the few movies to have crossed the Rs 100-crore mark in the first weekend.
Endgame witnessed the most robust distribution for any Hollywood film. Even with a runtime of three hours (without an interval), there were 13,000 shows per day. It was the first time that exhibitors ran 24x7 programming for a Hollywood film.
“The demand for the movie has been phenomenal, which has resulted in Endgame performing even better than expected. Non-metro cities have shown equal demand, which contributed to its fabulous run. We have seen 85 per cent occupancy in the first weekend across markets. While in case of metro cities, heavy advance bookings were done, in non-metros, the uptake was quicker for current bookings,” says Devang Sampat, director - strategic initiatives, Cinépolis India.
