Rs 950 crore! Uri, Kesari, Total Dhamaal, Gully Boy give Bollywood a fantastic first quarter of 2019

Bollywood has kickstarted 2019 with a bang. In fact, with several hit movies as well as blockbusters to its credit, the Hindi film industry has been on a high. And with the first quarter of 2019 coming to an end, we take a look to see how the movies have performed at the box office. Yes, several films have won the audience’s hearts, but how much money have they been able to make at the ticket window. Looking closely at the collections of each and every movie, we can confirm that we’ve had four Rs 100 crore films, out of which one made Rs 250 crore too! Overall, Bollywood has managed to rake in Rs 950 crore at the box office in the first quarter of 2019, which is huge!

Talking about the performance of Bollywood in 2019 till now, Akshaye Rathi reveals to us exclusively, “It has been a very good quarter with a lot of blockbusters. I attribute Simmba to this quarter pretty much because two – three days of December don’t count. The bulk of the business happened in this quarter. So Simmba made a huge contribution, then came Uri: The Surgical Strike. It did incredible business, becoming one of the top 10 all-time highest grossers of Hindi Cinema, which is terrific. These two were massive films and they were followed by some incredible films. We had Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, Kesari, Gully Boy, Total Dhamaal, all of which did Rs 100 crore plus business. Luka Chuppi and Badla also performed well. With as many films doing so well in the quarter, I feel it is absolutely incredible.”

Top 20 Bollywood grossers of the first quarter of 2019:

If you look at the collections of the top 20 releases, Bollywood has raked in Rs 930 crore at the box office. The remaining 50 other releases add Rs 20 odd crore to the Hindi film industry’s kitty. This has enabled Bollywood to take a fantastic start to 2019. As Akshaye added, “It has been among one of the best first quarters of the last decade with as many films doing so well at the box office. It has been terrific.”

But looks like the situation could have been even better. As Akshaye reveals to us exclusively, “I expected Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi to do slightly better business than what it managed. And even though Kesari is performing phenomenally well, I still thought it could go substantially beyond than what it did. I expected it to go to Rs 160 crore odd by now (currently at Rs 128 crore). In that sense, they have under-performed, but having said that they’ve done extremely well and made money for the producers, distributors and everyone else.” What do you have to say about Bollywood’s performance in the first quarter of 2019? Share with us your thoughts in the comments section below!