India’s all-India box office has moved from Rs 11,833 crore in 2024 to Rs 13,395 crore in 2025. Now Cinepolis India’s head of commercialisation, Ashish Misra, believes 2026 can become the first year to cross Rs 15,000 crore.
In an exclusive conversation with Bollywood Hungama, Misra said the breadth of the year’s business is as important as the headline total. “It will probably be the first time that the box office in India crosses the Rs. 15,000 crores mark,” he told the publication. He added that the contribution is not coming from a handful of blockbusters; small and medium-budget films are also doing well.
Hollywood’s tailwind
The international slate is one reason for the confidence. By the end of July, international films had collected Rs 1,424 crore in India, putting the year within reach of the Rs 1,595 crore full-year record set in 2019. Spider-Man: Brand New Day became the highest-grossing international film ever in India. By August, Hollywood was commanding 15% of the Indian box office, up from 10% in 2025.
Misra framed the recovery as a release-pipeline correction after the 2023 Hollywood strikes. Horror has historically worked well for Hollywood in India—The Conjuring universe and the Evil Dead series were earlier examples—so Obsession’s word-of-mouth success followed a known pattern. Michael also worked, and Project Hail Mary found an audience through its visuals and subject.
For Hindi cinema, that matters because local and international films compete for the same multiplex screens. A larger Hollywood share raises the ceiling for event films, but it also sharpens the fight for shows.
The arithmetic
- Rs 11,833 crore: all-India gross box office in 2024.
- Rs 13,395 crore: all-India gross box office in 2025.
- Rs 1,424 crore: international films’ India collection by end-July 2026.
- Rs 1,595 crore: previous full-year record for international films, set in 2019.
- 15%: Hollywood’s August 2026 share, up from 10% in 2025.
Ramayana and the ceiling
The most consequential Hindi-linked project is Ramayana. Misra said its scale is large enough that it could become “the biggest film the Indian film industry has ever seen,” and he argued that the film can carry Indian culture and heritage to worldwide audiences. That is a cultural framing as much as a commercial one.
Such a declaration has trade meaning. A Hindi title crossing an all-India record would reorder the assumptions about what an Indian film can gross, especially during a year in which growth has come across languages, genres and budgets.
December’s screen test
The fourth quarter will test how exhibitors allocate shows. Avengers: Doomsday, Dune: Part Three, Jumanji: Open World and Shah Rukh Khan’s King arrive close together. Misra described programming as demand-led: more shows go to the films audiences actually want to watch.
He pointed to Toxic and Hanuman Ansh as a recent example. Toxic was expected to be the bigger grosser, but Hanuman Ansh was gaining momentum three weeks into its run, and Cinepolis shifted programming as audience response changed.
The watchpoint for Hindi film followers is whether King holds screens against three Hollywood heavyweights—and whether Ramayana later resets the ceiling. The year’s remaining months look less like a competition and more like a stress test for demand-led exhibition.
Source: Bollywood Hungama
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