2015 Box Office Report Card ‘Jan To June’ : Hits, Misses & Surprising Performers

Almost 33 notable film have released in the first half of the year and while some have under performed, there have been quite a lot of surprises this year. Sleeper hits have put the trade analysts in a fix as their predictions have been contradicting this year.

Here is a break down of how films have performed in the first half of the year:

Surprising Disasters

There are always those films which have a decent appeal before the release. Two particular films that performed way below expectations in the first half were Ayushman Khurrana’s biopic Hawaizaada and Kuch Kuch Locha Hai. What was surprising for Hawaizaada was the fact that it was a Biopic. If one would glance at Bollywood’s history, it has been clear that usually biopics have an appeal. Sadly, this one tanked with a collection of merely 3 crores lifetime, which was unlikely. Other shocking disaster was Kuch Kuch Locha Hai. Most films Leone has starred in have fared much better and surprisingly, this film in spite of having popular music as its selling point fared disastrously. Kuch Kuch Locha Hai too like Hawaizaada made a miserable business of 4 crores at the box office.

Surprising Successes

There have been 5 hits and 1 superhit film, so far in this year. What is intriguing is that all of these have been extremely surprising with their performance. They have all exceeded expectations of trade experts. Varun Dhawan’s Badlapur became the first hit of 2015 and met with commercial as well as critical success that turned out to be a game changer for Varun Dhawan as well. Just when we thought Hawaizaada had tanked Ayushmann Khurrana’s career, it got a new lease of life with Dum Laga Ke Haisha which is the most surprising hit of the year. The film made a business of 30 crores at the box office. Other surprising hits of the year include NH10 and Hunterrr. Also Deepika Padukone’s Piku was astonishingly good at the box. office. The most surprising super hit of the year so far is Tanu Weds Manu Returns. It is already the highest grosser of 2015 and also has become the first 100 crore film of the year.

Disappointments

While the first six months of the year did promise some big films, it turned out to be just disappointing. Bombay Velvet was supposedly, the magnum opus project of Anurag Kashyap but the film met with negative reviews and was rejected by the audiences too. Similarly, Shamitabh, Mr. X, Hamari Adhuri Kahani were touted to be important films of the year but all of them failed to show any charm at the box office.

Special Mention

The first big film of the year was Akshay Kumar’s Baby. It performed decent but unlike his usual films, the Neeraj Pandey directorial could not reach even the 100 crore mark. Since Akshay was the only big star to have two releases in the first half, there were high expectations from both Baby and Gabbar Is Back, but the latter too couldn’t hit the century.

The first six months have been game changers for some of the stars as unexpected films have performed exceptionally well. What lies in the second half are biggies like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Brothers, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, Dilwale and Bajirao Mastani.