With 17 films crossing the Rs 100 crore mark in the first six months, this year relied less on big-ticket blockbusters.
With movie theatres struggling to attract audiences back to the silver screens, new scripts and franchise titles are doing the magic, as box office collections increased by 14 per cent year-on-year to Rs 5,723 crore (Rs 57.23 billion) in the first half of the 2025 calendar year, according to a report.
With a steady flow of 17 films crossing the Rs 100 crore mark (Rs 1 billion) in the first six months, this year relied less on the big-ticket blockbusters, a report released by Ormax Media stated.
Historical movie Chhaava, based on Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj's life, is the highest-grossing film so far this year.
The Vicky Kaushal starrer movie minted Rs 693 crore (Rs 6.93 billion) at the domestic box office followed by the Telugu film Sankranthiki Vasthunam (Rs 222 crore/Rs 2.22 billion).
In June, the gross collection crossed Rs 900 crore (Rs 9 billion).
The Aamir Khan and Genelia Deshmukh starrer Sitaare Zameen Par, which was exclusively released in theatres on June 20, came at the third position in terms of gross domestic box office collection, with Rs 201 crore (Rs 2.01 billion).
It featured Khan as a suspended basketball coach who serves community service by helping a team of players with disabilities.
Housefull 5, a murder mystery comedy, which experimented with having two different endings minted Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion).
Raid 2, starring Riteish Deshmukh as a corrupt politician and Ajay Devgn as an income tax officer, minted Rs 199 crore (Rs 1.99 billion) at the box office.
Last year during the same period, 10 films had crossed the Rs 100 crore mark.
While the film industry struggled to fill seats in theatres, with only a few movie releases pulling crowds around the festive season last year, the report anticipates this year to break records in terms of domestic box office collection with an overall collection of Rs 13,500 crore (Rs 135 billion).
'Over the last two years, the January-June period has contributed 42 per cent to the annual box office. Applying that proportion, 2025 can be expected to close at Rs 13,500 crore, which will make it the best year ever at the India box office,' the report said.
Some major movies expected to release this year are Kantara: Chapter 1, Avatar: Fire and Ash (third instalment in the Avatar series), War 2 (Yash Raj Films' spy universe film), and Coolie (the Tamil action thriller starring Rajnikanth), among others.
The year started strong with Pushpa 2: The Rule continuing its theatrical run in January, followed by Maddock Films-backed Chhaava in February and Raid 2 in May.
However, the industry faced a challenging time around April-end and the start of May in northern and western regions near the border, where cinemas in select cities had to cancel night shows due to tensions between India and Pakistan.
Adding to this, some major releases like the Akshay Kumar starrer Sky Force, and Sikander featuring Salman Khan failed to perform as expected at the box office.
In terms of linguistic contributions to the domestic box office, Hindi movies led with 40 per cent of the share in the January-June period, in line with last year.
This was followed by Telugu and Tamil films at 20 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.
On the back of several high-profile releases, Hollywood's contribution to the domestic box office returned to the double-digit share, having last crossed the 10 per cent-mark in 2022, the report added.
