Hollywood films have emerged handsome winners in 2025 outshining mainstream Bollywood films in the Indian box office. And the big hitters have been F1: The Movie, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Jurassic World: Rebirth and the latest, The Conjuring: The Last Rites.

Interestingly, in this smooth ride of Hollywood films in 2025, The US-based Warner Bros. Pictures saw its market share in the India collection jump two times in 2025.

“The right balance of mid-and-small and big films across diverse genres has worked for us,” said Denzil Dias, VP and managing director, India Theatrical, Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of Warner Bros. Pictures.

Till date, in 2025, Hollywood films have collected more than Rs 862 crore in India, half of that for Warner Bros. movies, accounting for 24% in 2024.

“We want to build an audience base. They will come for blockbuster films. But we also want mid-and-small-budget to work in theatres,” said Dias of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Dias stressed that after the pandemic audiences have become selective in their theatrical outings, making filmmaking far more serious and responsible affair. “But the silver lining is that audiences are willing to pay a premium price to watch good films in theatres,” he added.

In 2025, Warner Bros. Pictures films such as F1: The Movie, Final Destination Bloodlines, Superman, Weapons, A Minecraft Movie, Dune: Part Two, Sinners and The Conjuring: Last Rites have performed noticeably well in India, taking the cumulative collection of its films to Rs 432 crore till date.

“For us, film distribution and marketing are not just about releasing films in the right theatres and getting the right number of shows. It is also about releasing films in the right language,” explained Dias. 

“We were clear about releasing Jurassic World: Rebirth in dubbed Hindi version. Today, 40% of our collection in India came from the Hindi dubbed version of the film,” he shared. Universal Pictures, which distributed Jurassic World: Rebirth, has a tie-up with Warner Bros. Picture to distribute films in India.

Two things have worked well for Warner Bros. Pictures. The studio has taken bold calls by backing mid-and-small originals such as Weapons and Companion, which paid off. Another aspect is handling of its franchise films.

“Ultimately only storytelling works and audiences smell a good film promptly. We have nurtured our franchise films. We identified filmmakers who were passionate about our franchise films. So, they made these films like a fan, which worked for these films,” Dias said.

In India, Warner Bros. Pictures has been collaborating with local influencers to review their films in Hindi which helped market their films well and reach a wide audience.

“We must understand what the audience wants. We sensed an opportunity in audiences’ resonance with games-related IPs. That is how the idea of the Minecraft movie germinated,” pointed Dias.

In the coming months, the studio has two distinct releases: One Battle After Another and Bugonia. “Today, even a small film like Bugonia can be an event film if it brings like-minded people into theatres,” explained Dias.

Dias is quite optimistic about the performance of Hollywood films in India in the coming months. “India is a movie-loving country. This is a big positive. It is about being authentic by creating right awareness and good stories. Audiences largely reward such an authentic approach,” he said. 

Upala KBR (MID-DAY; November 17, 2017)

Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot’s Justice League may be packed with superheroes, but their superpowers can’t ensure the release of the film’s regional versions in India. While the original hits theatres today, the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu versions are yet to be granted a censor certificate.

A source reveals that Warner Bros (India), the distributors of the film, have been told that the Censor Board couldn’t watch the film as they have a backlog of movies to be censored. Says a trade source, “It’s outrageous that a film has been postponed because of a delay in the censor certificate. When people from the distribution company expressed their dissatisfaction, members of the Censor Board turned the tables on them and pointed out how they hadn’t submitted the film 68 days prior to its release. While the rule is a part of the 1952 Act, it has never been implemented.”

Considering a chunk of a movie’s collections are earned over the opening weekend, the superhero film will take a severe beating. “On an average, dubbed versions make for 40-50 per cent of a film’s earnings. This will have a huge impact on Justice League’s revenues. Warner Bros is staring at huge losses.”

Trade analyst Atul Mohan points out that such a delay implies losses for the government too. “It loses out on 28 per cent GST for the projected business at the box office. The South is a big market for Hollywood films [with subtitles]. So it’s a lose-lose situation for all parties,” he says.

Denzil Dias (vice president and managing director, Warner Bros Pictures India) says, “We’re working with the CBFC to resolve the issue and get our regional language films censored at the earliest.”

Regional versions of superhero film miss release date as CBFC yet to certify them

Subhash K Jha (DNA; December 14, 2015)


Filmmaker Ramesh Sippy termed it “a good initiative”. He added. “Online certification will automatically knock off a lot of the problems faced by us.”

Aman Gill, CEO Balaji Films, described it as “an even more efficient system that has been put in place.” Lalit Chatwani of Sony Films called it “a step towards automation and more transparency.”

Kulmeet Makkar CEO of the Film & Television Producers Guild Of India adds, “For me, CBFC’s initiative to invite industry stakeholders on board and take their inputs before launching the online process, was much more important. We as an industry can certainly partner with the board to ensure that the online process is launched successfully.”

Says Denzil Dias of Warner Films, “It’s a proactive move, but some more fine-tuning is required. That can be done in due course. This is a very good first step. I liked a statement by Nihalani assuring us that the CBFC will bend backwards to ensure films are censored on time even for late applications. It gives a sense of confidence, especially for Hollywood studios as we need to censor four versions (English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu) of the film.”