One Month After Demonetistion: How Bollywood Fared at Box Office

It’s been a month since India got swept away in the note ban tide. Business, all across the country, has been hit. Even though a lot of filmmakers and film fraternity members believed that the note ban will not impact Bollywood, the box office collections speak otherwise. Most of the November releases faired below expectations – not just in terms of cash collection but even the footfalls saw a considerable dip.

Rock On!! 2, the first film to hit the theatres post the announcement, probably felt the hardest impact of demonetisation. Actor Arjun Rampal, who believes that this move will benefit the country in the long run, makes no bones about admitting that the timing of the film turned out to be unfortunate. He said,"Well, when the entire country does not have enough earning, how will Rock On 2 do business? People don't have enough money in their hand. It is an unfortunate timing for us and for any other film.” Despite the buy-one-get-one-free offer on the tickets, the film failed to meet the expectations.

Trade analyst Taran Adarsh first took to Twitter with the opening collection of the film and wrote, “#RockOn2 has a DISMAL start... Fri ₹ 2.02 cr. India biz.” and two days later, he termed the collections as ‘disappointing’.

The ensuing cash crunch further affected the next releases of the month including Chaar Sahibzaade: Rise Of Banda Singh Bahadur and Dongri Ka Raja. A week later, two important films; Force 2 and Tum Bin 2 released and as expected, they didn’t really do much business. While the former still received decent collections, the latter didn’t do well at all.

Dear Zindagi starring Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan managed to be a silver lining in the Bollywood’s financial crisis. Be it the stellar cast, the story line or just the fact that viewers now had money to spend on movie tickets; the film managed to bring back home the bucks it thought it would.

While the box office journey is now witnessing a positive growth, it’ll still be a bumpy ride considering the constant developments being made by the current government.