Bell Bottom Review: Focus Is On Akshay Kumar Playing Akshay Kumar - The Film Suffers In The Bargain

Box Office India Trade Network

BELLBOTTOM collected 2.75 crore nett plus on day one with a limited release. The collections total around 2.60 crore nett with Bihar and Odisha to come which will probably be in the 10-20 lakh range. The film did not release in Maharashtra, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala and while the last three mentioned do not make much of a difference, Maharashtra is the killer. Wherever it did release, there was the 50% occupancy rule which meant collections in peak time screenings could not collect as they should.

The best collections for the film came in NCR (despite limited night shows) Kolkatta and Chandigarh. This basically resulted in Delhi/UP, East Punjab and West Bengal doing best numbers. East Punjab was 46 lakhs nett while West Bengal was 28 lakhs nett. Delhi/UP was 75 lakhs nett and going by East Punjab, it should have actually topped 1 crore but very limited business in cities of UP (outside Noida and Ghaziabad) and limited night shows in Delhi city stopped the film going above 1 crore nett. West Bengal got a good release considering other circuits of 125 screens but it was a low performance outside Kolkata. 

The Central India markets of CP, CI, Rajasthan could not do much with business with just 30 lakhs nett coming with these circuits heavily restricted by cinemas being shut. Gujarat (except some cinemas) and South also could not do much. 

The number is not good but the reason for that was the expectations that were built by the industry which as usual were best case scenarios. Obviously these were based on what films like ROOHI and MUMBAI SAGA did but things are different at present. The non release of Maharashtra is there but even without that, the screen count of BELLBOTTOM is pretty similar to ROOHI and MUMBAI SAGA. The reason why it could not meet the industry expectations is the 50% occupancy rule which does not allow the normal collections in peak shows. This is so important for a film like BELLBOTTOM as its not going to fly from the morning shows.

If the film released in the ROOHI and MUMBAI SAGA time, it would have reached pre release industry expectations as it would have done 50-60% more and that is even without Maharashtra. The potential business was all about building capacity pre pandemic and its still the same as far as Hindi cinema goes and the 50% rule means you are 50% down before you even start. The footfalls of the film are also low as per the collections due to 3D ticket pricing. MUMBAI SAGA remains the film with the highest footfalls on day one post the pandemic while collections of BELLBOTTOM, ROOHI and MUMBAI SAGA are all in the same range, give or take a few lakhs.