Box-Office Collection: Who can you trust?

Do you believe film posters and newspaper headlines which scream that they have minted Rs 100 crore at the box-office? Even though corporate and studios have entered the film market and multiplexes have mushroomed in most cities, which can track real time figures of the number of people watching a film at any given point of time, why is there not one body in India that can give us authentic collections? Many a time, producers share inflated box-office numbers; their ads and social media campaign proudly claim that their film has crossed the 100-crore mark, while the reality is far from that.
It’s surprising anyone in the biggest film industry in the world can claim any numbers and there is little that can be done about it. Producer Mukesh Bhatt spoke to the Times Of India and said, “We should be in the business of making movies and not making numbers. I can tell you, earlier, not one ticket number was inflated. Inflation of box-office numbers is a tragedy we are dealing with!”
One of the reasons why a system is not put in place is because this system works businesswise. The audience, on seeing a film’s poster that says it has made Rs 100 crore, does not challenge it and mostly believes it – and that’s clearly what the producers want. Producers want to compete with one another and so do the stars. When their films do not touch the 100-crore mark, they will claim it did, just to be in the rat race.
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A lot of studios follow boxofficeindia.com for figures, where numbers are sometimes 20 to 25 per cent lower than what the producers claim a lot of times. A distributor, who didn’t want to be named, told TOI, “BoxofficeIndia.com has authentic numbers, most from the fraternity follow this when tracking one another’s films. But when it comes to their own films, they track the sites that show inflated numbers.”
The disparity in box-office numbers can even be seen in the case of recent big releases, ‘Raees’ and ‘Kaabil’. According to Boxofficeindia.com, Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Raees’ collected approximately Rs 1,10,05,00,000 in 9 days. However, according to Bollywoodhungama.com, the same film was reported to have collected Rs 122.36 crore at the end of Week One. For ‘Kaabil’. Boxofficeindia.com reported that the film had earned approximately Rs 65,74,00,000 in 9 days. In sharp contrast, Bollywoodhungama.com reported that Hrithik Roshan’s film garnered Rs 90.55 crore in the same span.
Such disparity was even seen in the case of Diwali release ‘Shivaay’. While Bollywoodhungama.com reported that the lifetime collections of the Ajay Devgn-starrer were Rs 100.33 crore, Boxofficeindia.com reported that it had earned Rs 84,83,50,000 (Total Nett).
India makes the maximum number of films in a year, more than any film industry in the world. Isn’t it time the film industry gets together and comes out with authentic figures for the sake of its audience who they are answerable to?