Why You Should Not Compare Hollywood and Bollywood Box Office Collection.

Mid 2017 was great for Indian movies as box office collection is concerned. We have our own war-epic film Baahubali 2: The Conclusion and sports drama दंगल . Both movies have earned over 2000 crore as a gross total worldwide. We have many movies with very nice numbers on the box office board which include PK , Sultan, 3 Idiots and much more. If you talk about Hollywood films, they have a number of pretty good films and box office collection which is far more better than Indian films.

If we look at the recent films of Hollywood with great collections, we have The Fate of the Furious , Captain America: Civil War. These movies have over 1 billion dollars of lifetime collection, about 7000 crores when converted to Indian Rupees.

The question arises why Hollywood films have much more collection as compared to Bollywood films? To answer this question we need to look at the statistics of both countries. What kind of statistics do we need to analyze? First, let us look at the number of theatre screen in both countries. America: The USA has about 40,000 screens, both including multiscreen theatres and single screen theatres. American box office does not count the number of screens because a multiplex there rarely shares the screening of a big movie with anyone else. That is why they count the number of theatres while releasing the movie. For example, The Avengers in 2012 screened on 123 theatres in April 2012. These statistics are from before release screenings worldwide. The USA has screen sharing in a single multiplex starting from 2 and extending up to 30 screens. Even if the share of each screen is 5 screens per multiplex, it makes up about 600 screens just for screening.

The Avengers released on May 4, 2012, in about 12,000 screens worldwide which are about 4900 theatres worldwide. It grossed over 200 million dollars on opening weekend, means 1250 crores in Indian rupees in 2012. Later The Avengers become the highest grossing film of 2012 with a gross collection of 1.5 billion dollars.

Let us look at the Indian market of movies. The latest film Dangal has grossed over 2000 crores rupees which are about 310 million US dollars. India has about 13000 screens. The largest supposed films in India get about 4000 screens share. Dangal was released on about 4900 screens in India and 1000 screen overseas, in its initial release. It earned about 511 crore rupees in India and about 200 crore rupees overseas. Making its total to about 711 crores. In its second phase release in China and Taiwan, it was released on about 9000 screen which is almost 2 times its initial release and earned about 1450 crores. It has beaten Guardians of the Galaxy on its 9th day of release in China. These were the screen sharing statistics. Now let us share some per ticket fee.

The average rate of a single movie ticket in the USA varies from about 8 dollars to 13 dollars depending upon the state and theatre, which converted to Indian rupees is 520 Rupees to 850 rupees. While in India a single movie ticket price is about 120 to 150 Rupees. So, if concluded, If the USA fills 1 seat with 8 dollars, in India it fills up to about 4 seats. So, owing to the screen share and ticket amount Hollywood films always beats Indian films.

These statistics show that one should not compare the box office collection of the two film industries because of the different conditions in the market of both countries. The currency exchange rates are also different. The economies of two countries are totally different. There are many different factors work in earning of a movie. These are some of the majors. Let us know about your views in the comments.