Seven Weekends When Hollywood Outperformed Bollywood

In 2025, Hollywood releases in India doubled their cumulative market share to a respectable 15 percent after closing out at a paltry eight percent in 2024. Tentpole films like F1: The Movie, Mission: Impossible - Final Reckoning, Jurassic World Rebirth, The Conjuring: Last Rites, and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba all turned out to be money spinners, nearly doubling its overall market share in India, in comparison to 2024's eight percent, according to trade experts.

While the Hindi and South Indian films still hold the top places on the box office charts, Hollywood films picked up momentum, even outperforming Hindi releases on multiple occasions — Hollywood outshined Bollywood films seven times this year. The biggest boost came in May 2025, when films such as Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, Final Destination Bloodlines, Thunderbolts, Lilo & Stitch and Karate Kid: Legends collectively accumulated over ₹200 crores in India. Brad Pitt’s blockbuster sports drama, F1 (June 27), Jurassic World Rebirth (July 4), Superman (July 11), The Fantastic Four: First Steps (July 25), The Conjuring: Last Rites (September 5), Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, and One Battle After Another (September 26), each performed better than the Hindi and regional films released alongside them.

“Hollywood films generally did well last year, both in the Hindi-dubbed and regional-dubbed versions,” says film trade analyst Ramesh Bala. He adds, “There’s always a market for them because their scale, budget, action and their way of storytelling is totally different from ours. And because today’s audiences live in a globalized world and are very connected with what’s happening at the international level, Hollywood movies attract them more. Franchise-based films with big ensemble casts draw audiences in huge numbers, and this year we had lots of such titles that pulled audiences to theatres in big numbers."

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Seven Weekends When Hollywood Outperformed Bollywood

Seven Weekends When Hollywood Outperformed Bollywood

“Last year, Hollywood’s share rose to 13–15 percent, a notable increase from 2024’s eight to nine percent,” says Devang Sampat, Managing Director, Cinépolis India. He adds, “We’re also seeing signs of superhero fatigue, while horror and drama titles — such as The Conjuring, Final Destination, and F1 — are outperforming. Jurassic World: Rebirth recorded more than 563,000 admissions, while The Conjuring: Last Rites brought in more than 512,000 admissions at Cinépolis India in Q3 alone, reflecting healthy audience interest.”

This dramatic rise is fueled by the audience’s growing appetite for large-scale movies in theatres, the big IPs that come with its own share of fan followings, and increasing awareness and anticipation about these films amongst local Indian moviegoers. Effective marketing and widespread localization of Hollywood films through local language dubbings also make them extremely popular, giving it an extra edge over Hindi and South Indian-dubbed movies. Alongside that, the rise of premium formats, such as IMAX and 4DX, has increased the value proposition of watching these titles in cinemas.

“Hollywood films always had an edge. With these films also releasing in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu-dubbed versions, audiences sitting in even non-English cities like Patna can understand what is on screen, and what’s being said. This is how they expanded the market,” adds trade analyst Taran Adarsh. Echoing the same sentiment, producer and film business expert, Girish Johar says, “By dubbing in regional languages, Hollywood is trying to push the market and reach to more interiors of the country, and that’s a good sign.” “Weapons, a horror film, which was a very niche, urban film with no major star face, did quite extraordinary business at the Indian box office. This clearly shows that Indian audiences are fully aligned with Hollywood taste. Especially post-pandemic, the language barriers have diminished and people are more tuned to watching foreign language films, increasing its contribution at the Indian box office,” Johar added. “Earlier, Hollywood’s box office share was two to two-and-a-half percent, then it rose to eight percent, 10 percent and 12 percent. And now the pie is increasing even further."

However, Hollywood is still far from reclaiming the domination it had pre-pandemic. Despite the new films crossing the ₹100 crore mark, they’re far from reaching the numbers films like Avengers: Endgame (₹373.05 crore) did at the Indian box office way back in 2019. Hollywood, just like Bollywood and any other film industry in the world, also requires its medium-budget films to perform well to show its real strength. “Big franchise films create momentum, but long-term performance depends equally on consistent mid-budget successes across languages. That is what we saw in 2025, with regional and Hindi titles collectively shaping the box office. If this balance continues, 2026 can be a stronger year with more predictable performance week-on-week,” adds Sampat of Cinépolis India.

2026 is packed with numerous tentpole, franchise Hollywood movies and trade experts expect them to strengthen Hollywood’s footprint in India further. Films like Avengers Doomsday, The Odyssey, Spider Man: Brand New Day, Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Moana and Jumanji 3 are expected to bring moolah at the ticket windows. These films tend to expand the overall market by bringing back infrequent moviegoers and attracting younger audiences. “In 2026, Hollywood biggies are coming in a big way. Let’s hope more and more people come back to theatres regularly. The habit of watching films has to return sooner. That’s necessary for the overall fraternity,” Johar signed off.

Avatar under fire from Dhurandhar

However, last year, Hollywood’s biggest release of the year, James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire And Ash just crumbled against Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar starring Ranveer Singh. Contrary to the sky-high expectations, the third Avatar film managed to collect only ₹67.25 crore (in all languages) over the weekend whereas Dhar’s spy thriller amassed over ₹95 crore net (Hindi only) despite being in the third weekend. Comparatively, Avatar: The Way of Water  had earned around ₹128 crore net on the opening weekend in 2022.