Every year the onus of producing the highest grossers in the film industry lie on the shoulders of Khans but 2018 saw a shift in this dynamic as most of the best performing movies belonged to the next generation of stars, with Alia Bhatt, Rajkumar Rao, Ayushman Khurana, Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor and Tiger Shroff taking the lead in Box Office collections, a Kotak research report said.

Also, English movies and regional cinema contributed much to the box office success of bollywood in 2018. Movies such as Avengers: Infinity Wars and Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom maintained a high number of footfall in the theatres. With social media affecting consumer behaviour, the public verdict had a lot to contribute to how the audience chose to watch the movies, the report said. This didn’t work in favour of Thugs Of Hindustan as it received largely negative reviews.

3 Top Grossing Indian movies

Ranbir Kapoor’s Sanju (Rs 329.2 crore), Deepika, Shahid Kapoor and Ranveer Singh’s Padmavat (Rs 282.3 crore) and Ranveer Singh and Sara Ali Khan’s Simmba (Rs 245 crore) did exceptionally well at the Box Office. What is to be noticed here is that all of them belong to the younger generation of Bollywood stars.

Also, movies such as Badhai Ho, Raazi, Stree, Sonu ke Teetu ki Sweety, Veerey di Wedding and Andhadhun, which had significantly low budget and low production value compared to the Khan movie counterparts were featured in top 25 movies by collection, suggesting that the future of Bollywood is with the younger generation now and also to the content, to a great extent.

Social media effect

Social media played a great role in impacting audience decision. Movies such as Badhai Ho, Raazi, Stree and Simmba gained momentum as they received thumbs-up from the netizens, whereas movies such as Thugs of Hindustan, Race 3 and Zero got sidelined with bad word of mouth publicity.

However, variables like release date, competition, the popularity of trailer/songs, etc also shape the performance and reception of the movie, said the report.

Hollywood and regional cinema

For Avengers: Infinity War and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Indian Box Office collection was Rs 222.7 crore and Rs 80 crore respectively. According to the report, the contribution of English and regional movies to PVR’s ticket sales increased to approximately 42% in 2018 from around 40% in 2017