Indian Box Office

The Indian Film Industry is popularly known as Bollywood among its billions of fans across all geographical boundaries. It is one of the biggest movie production centers around the world. The first Indian movie was directed by the great visionary and Father of Indian Cinema, Dadasaheb Phalke. It was purely a black-and-white movie Raja Harishchandra, which hit the Indian Silver Screen in the year of 1913. Eventually, the market extended and the number of movies produced kept increasing throughout the Twenties and Thirties. With new development, new technologies were introduced in the industry, including the use of audio and later color. These most contemporary technologies of those times gave new dimensions to the film production in India. Alam Ara was India's first audio movie, while Kisan Kanya got the privilege of being India's first color movie. Release of these newer technologies significantly formed the style of Indian Film-making, as the advent of audio made popular musicals and song-and-dance series, making them a fundamental element of Indian Film Industry.

The market did face problems during the Thirties because of freedom movement and World war-II. The 40s, 50's and 60’s are often known as the "Golden Years" of Bollywood. Indian Films got much critical appreciation all over the globe. Several prominent film-makers like Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor and Bimal Roy were active during these decades and were important in shaping and developing the market. Mehboob Khan's Mother India got worldwide popularity and became India's first official movie to be selected for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Other Bollywood movies from the era were showcased in important Film Festivals across the globe, and some of them won significant awards as well. Similar movies also appeared during now, and gained momentum later on after a "hibernation" stage.

Starting with the 40s, Bollywood movies witnessed huge success at the Indian Box Office, and several movie records were breached within no time. As the fame of Indian movies touched new heights, theatrical income also kept improving by leaps and bounds. The 1943 Gyan Mukherjee-directed classic Kismet became the first Bollywood movie to cross the 1 crore benchmark. Following years saw more movies breaching the 1 Crore Benchmark until Shree 420 breached the 2 Crore Benchmark for once. Starting with the Sixties and particularly Seventies, Bollywood movies achieved significant Box Office successes more consistently, and the income multiplies throughout this interval. Sholay, a 1975 classic, gained triple the amount that the past record-holder Mughal-e-Azam earned, while Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! more than quadrupled Sholay's history. After the "Dark Phase" of the Nineteen-eighties, business improved extremely as is noticeable from the significant achievements of movies like Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Gadar: Ek Prem Katha.

In the beginning, the success of a movie was established by its run at the Indian Box Office than income. But the scenario has changed a lot today due to ever increasing competition from the Indian Television Industry and the risk of piracy. The introduction of other medium of entertainment, life of movies reduced significantly and income became the main focus of success. The revenue-earning model has become progressively front-loaded over the years, and now most movies rely solely on First Weekend Collection to decide the destiny of a movie. It is a model that has received extensive critique from specialist. This model further gained more acceptances after the multiplex growth in India following liberalization.

Since 2008, Bollywood movies have started breaking the 100 Crore Benchmark consistently. Ghajini prides in being the first Bollywood movie to cross this coveted benchmark in the year of 2008. Seeing the importance given to the 100 Crore Club, several movies have breached that mark since then. Starting with the 2000s and particularly 2010s, the number of theaters a movie is released in and marketing initiatives have improved drastically to the level that movies can accomplish the 100 Crore Benchmark  in just one week time. Today the single-day full-capacity income of a movie can be 30 crore or even more. Franchisees have experienced ever improving reputation and several extremely popular franchises such as Dhoom and Golmaal saw good results at the Indian Box Office.