At around 9 am on 20 July (Monday), Shreet Kulhara was at one of Gwalior’s only commercial spaces with a multiplex, not for a Hindi film but to watch British-American director Christopher Nolan’s action-epic The Odyssey.
The 20-year-old watched the Matt Damon-starrer in a regular format, paying ₹230, while the average ticket price for any mainstream A-list Hindi movie in Gwalior ranges between ₹80 and ₹450.
Kulhara found Nolan’s telling of the Greek mythological story, penned by Homer, a cerebral experience with intricate storylines, expansive scenes and sound designs.
“I did not know much about the film beforehand. But the reviews were really good and the poster looked extremely interesting, which made me buy a ticket,” the management student told Mint over a phone call.
While there is no segregated age-group data, according to cinema chain owners and those in the business of tracking movie performances, millennials and Generation Z moviegoers have been thronging cinema halls across India to catch Nolan’s latest magnum opus.
“The craze for Nolan films is [highest] among millennials and Gen Zs,” insisted Sanjay Barjatya, chief executive officer, Roongta Cinemas, a Surat-headquartered multiplex chain.
Moviegoers have been watching the film in premium formats such as IMAX, Dolby Atoms, HyperX, and EPIQ. Since the marketing around the film was heavily focused on The Odyssey being shot in IMAX, occupancy rates in premium formats are up to 80%, said Amit Sharma, co-founder of One Cinema, a Mumbai-headquartered multiplex chain. In the regular format, the occupancy is 20–30%, which is also considered good for a Hollywood release, he added.
The footfalls have been seen not just in the metros, but in smaller cities and towns as well. Think Tiruppur and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. Even Prayagraj and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh and Surat in Gujarat are attracting people to pay anywhere between ₹250 and ₹500 for regular format, and upwards of ₹1,000 to view The Odyssey in premium format, said at least half a dozen movie exhibitors.
The film opened across more than 2,500 screens, according to Sacnilk Technologies, a Rajasthan-based media company. Mint couldn’t immediately ascertain the breakup of screens between metros and non-metro cities as Warner Bros. Discovery’s India vertical, which distributed the film domestically, did not respond to a detailed query.
For a non-franchise Hollywood tentpole release to have house full shows beyond India’s metropolitan cities is an unprecedented phenomenon, say exhibitors and trade analysts.
In Broadway Cinemas, Coimbatore, bookings for the IMAX version of the Matt Damon-starrer had an unprecedented average occupancy of 85% from the opening Friday until the following Thursday, said Tejal Satish, chief operating officer, Broadway Cinemas.
“Having almost housefull shows, through the weekend, before any reviews were out is a rare phenomenon for a (non-franchise) Hollywood movie,” Satish added.
Bollywood’s blues
The Odyssey’s success comes at a time when India’s dominant Hindi box office has not seen many ticket sellers since spy-thriller Dhurandhar 2 and war-epic Border 2 released in January.
While Dhurandhar 2 earned ₹1,005 crore net in India after an unprecedented theatrical run of close to 10 weeks, Border 2 earned ₹314 crore net after running for seven weeks, according to Box Office India.
Recent June releases, including Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Main Vaapas Aaunga and romantic-comedy Cocktail 2, and multi-starrer comedies Welcome to the Jungle and Dhamaal 4 have kept the box office pot churning. But none of them have been record breakers, which small town exhibitors expect The Odyssey to become in the coming weekends.
Indeed, whenever a tentpole Hollywood film releases in India, Indian filmmakers do not release their movies alongside for fear of losing ticket revenue, say multiple industry professionals.
Most Indian movies such as Batwara: 1947, featuring Sunny Deol and Preity Zinta, and Yash (Naveen Kumar Gowda)-starrer Toxic: A Fairytale for Grown-Ups are set to release this month, giving Sony Pictures’ Spider Man: Brand New Day two weeks of no competition.
Standing out
Nolan’s 13th directorial reportedly opened to about ₹16 crore on the release day, and quickly grossed ₹92 crore net, excluding taxes, in eight days since releasing on July 17, according to Box Office India, a website tracking box office data.
This is Nolan’s first film to touch ₹100 crore in net earnings in India in less than three weeks of release. His biographical-thriller Oppenheimer (2023) opened at ₹13.50 crore net, according to Box Office India. The majority of the earnings came from metro cities, according to trade analysts. Overall, the Cillian Murphy-starrer collected $975 million in worldwide gross collections, according to Box Office Mojo.
In recent years, while the needle has not moved much overall, there have been notable performances by some Hollywood films in India.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) and Avengers: Endgame (2019) collected over ₹370 crore, followed by Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), which collected more than ₹200 crore, at the Indian box office.
Since Oppenheimer released in English and Hindi, it could not resonate with India’s non-Hindi-and-English-speaking audience across four film-crazy southern states. The Odyssey was released in Tamil and Telugu as well as English and Hindi, giving the Greek tale legs to reach a large non-English speaking audience.
Other Hollywood movies, which released on 10 July, a week before The Odyssey, such as horror Evil Dead Burn and Disney’s live-action remake Moana, have barely found screens beyond metro cities. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the only other Hollywood movie listed for ticket purchases in Tiruppur, Coimbatore, Gwalior, and Amravati, according to data available on Bookmyshow, the biggest ticket booking platform in India.
The Nolan pull
A week before its worldwide release, The Odyssey was premiered in Mumbai, India’s film and financial capital, as a part of the movie’s release tour, with Nolan, his wife and producer Emma Thomas, and actors Damon and Tom Holland walking the red carpet and interacting with fans as well as the Indian entertainment media.
“I’ve had the pleasure of filming here (in India) twice. For many years, I’ve wanted to come here and launch one of our films and experience it with Indian audiences, who are some of the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable cinematic audiences in the world,” Nolan said at the premiere.
The filmmaker has built a following in India for over 15 years now. Cinephiles and film watchers across the country have access to catch up on Nolan’s 13 films going as far back as Memento (2000).
“For many people in India and a lot of filmmakers, Christopher Nolan is like their god. That is the kind of reverence he commands,” says Komal Nahta, trade analyst and editor, Film Information. “The Odyssey was also revered by critics and fans alike across social media, and the premiere in Mumbai seems to have created good awareness about the film among the younger and older generations alike,” he added.
Tushar Dhingra, founder, Dhishoom Cinema, claims younger moviegoers, in particular, have taken to Nolan in a big way. His Gurugram-headquartered multiplex chain is screening The Odyssey in Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh) and Jhunjhunu (Rajasthan).
“If you ask someone from the younger generation about the initial Nolan movies they have watched, it would most likely be Inception,” says Dhingra.
The Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer Inception, released in 2010, reportedly opened to ₹7.5 crore ($1.6 million) and released alongside smaller Hindi releases of the time, including comedy Tere Bin Laden and coming-of-age film Udaan. After Inception, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) generated nearly ₹25 crore in its opening weekend, Mint had reported earlier.
Nolan is known to shoot on locations and use computer generated imagery (CGI) minimally. “For a generation that is constantly navigating through AI slop, Nolan’s films require a certain level of careful attention as opposed to mindless brainrot,” says Rahul Advani, cultural anthropologist, and insight and strategy manager at Mumbai-based consultancy Plum Insights and Strategy.
“Interstellar was the first Nolan movie I watched in a theatre but I consider Inception to be a near-perfect film. Consistent in its tone with adequate drama, it was true to its sci-fi source material and the movie was suspenseful,” says Sharvil Kala, a 30-year-old lawyer from Dehradun, currently practising in Delhi. Before Interstellar, Kala caught most of Nolan’s movies on TV channels.
“I usually don’t plan on watching Hollywood movies in theatres unless something catches my eye. But there is so much hype around Nolan’s new releases that I always end up catching the movie in theatres,” Kala adds.
A drop in the ocean
While Nolan’s movies have attracted opening day numbers in the past, their overall collection in India has been a tiny part of the worldwide earnings.
For instance, science-fiction adventure Interstellar (2014) grossed $6 million in India, according to Box Office Mojo, while the worldwide gross collection stood at $681 million. Similarly, Dunkirk (2017) grossed $3 million compared to a worldwide gross of $526 million.
Oppenheimer (2023) released right after Covid-led lockdowns were fully lifted worldwide.
“For many years now, Hollywood films have been competing with Hindi films easily. Movies with a big star cast or a franchise film or Christopher Nolan and James Cameron films do very well in India,” says Nahta. Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) grossed ₹471 crore at the Indian box office.
However, One Cinema’s Sharma says the audience has evolved and cast is no longer a deciding factor in India. “India is in a phase where content drives ticket sales rather than stars,” he asserts. Hence, if the content is good and people get to know about it, they will come and watch the movie unlike before when they would come to watch their favourite stars, he says.
A case in point is May release Obsession. The psychological thriller, which made a massive $459 million gross in worldwide box office collections, raked in a creditable $10 million in India, even though there were no big stars in the film.
Watch out, China
So, why is India becoming a favourable market for Hollywood studios even though neighbouring China has better cinematic infrastructure?
So far, The Odyssey has not been released in China, which has nearly 800 IMAX screens, and has also been one of the major earning markets for Nolan’s movies.
Interstellar grossed $121.9 million in China, according to Box Office Mojo, recovering more than half of the film’s budget of $165 million. Similarly, Dunkirk grossed $50.9 million at the Chinese box office on a budget of $100 million, says Box Office Mojo.
But as China continues to become a difficult market for Hollywood movie releases, with rising domestic competition and a worsening US-China relationship, India is naturally the next best market.
“The Odyssey reinforces both the depth of audience engagement with global cinema and the growing importance of India within the worldwide theatrical ecosystem,” Ashish Saksena, chief operating officer – cinemas at BookMyShow had told Mint earlier.
There are only 34 IMAX commercial locations in India, in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Surat and Kochi, according to Preetham Daniel, VP, theatre development, India, South East Asia and Australasia, IMAX Corp.
The country’s first IMAX screen opened in Mumbai in 2001. Initially used for educational, among other non-commercial purposes, IMAX only started to gain domestic movie traction after 2013, when Dhoom 3, an action-thriller backed by Yash Raj Films, became the first Hindi movie to release in the format.
All in all, the Indian audience’s passion for good films cannot be ignored by Hollywood’s major studios. India ticks many boxes for them to tap into. It has the world’s largest young population, people hungry for entertainment, and drifting local competition.