A superb year

From Avengers: Infinity War, Mission: Impossible Fallout, Deadpool 2, Black Panther, Venom to “Aquaman” — 2018 was a big year for superhero films and big franchises in India.

Incredible times

“It has been a phenomenal year for Hollywood with mega hits like Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Black Panther — besides giving Bollywood movies released alongside a run for their money; it has resulted in increased market share for Hollywood,” Vijay Singh, CEO, Fox Star Studios said. 

 The year started with the entry of African superhero Black Panther. The Marvel Studios’ film, featuring Chadwick Boseman as the superhero, registered an opening collection of over Rs 7 crore when it released in February. 

 Game changers

But Avengers: Infinity War — which brought together 22 superheroes to fight supervillain Thanos — turned out to be the game changer. The film crossed Rs 292 crore (Gross Box Office collection) in India. It opened in the country in April.

 Reflecting on the successful year, Bikram Duggal, Head - Studio Entertainment, Disney India, said: “Fans loved the high-octane superhero action drama in Avengers: Infinity War, making it the highest Hollywood grosser in the country and the same audience took to animation as a family entertainer when they embraced the story of a unique family in Incredibles 2’.  

Hollywood Vs Bollywood

At a time when Salman Khan’s Race 3, Aamir Khan’s Thugs of Hindostan and Shah Rukh Khan’s Zero fell flat at the box office, larger than life stories from Hollywood gave people a reason to come to the theatres.  “As compared to its Bollywood counterpart, the performance was better as far as movies which had big stars featured in it, whereas Bollywood did have a few failures even with big stars featuring in it,” said Dhruv S Sinha, who looks after overseas and Hollywood business for Reliance Entertainment. 

The art of storytelling

It proved, once again, that content is the bigger star in showbiz. “What has worked with the audience is the storytelling, the content, the visual effects - essentially wholesome entertainment that audience has been longing for,” Singh said. 

Krishnani pointed out “whether it is English or local content, people are smart enough to understand what is good content and what is not”.

Added Sinha: “Learning has been very similar with both Hollywood and Hindi films that audience is accepting films which are content driven.” Be it Tom Cruise’s return as a spy in Paramount Pictures’ Mission: Impossible Fallout, Chris Pratt’s jungle ride in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Tom Hardy’s Venom, — there was action, romance, drama, comedy and lots of entertainment in the stories that came to life on the big screen. 

— IANS