Sep 20, 2026 6:00pm IST
Ritesh Sidhwani on ‘Mirzapur: The Movie’’s Box Office Success: ‘Audience Footfall Excites Me More’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Ritesh Sidhwani, who co-produced “Mirzapur: The Movie” alongside Farhan Akhtar, under their banner Excel Entertainment, opens up about the film’s box-office collections. During an exclusive interview with Variety India, Sidhwani offers his take on the film’s growing numbers nationwide, sharing that he is concerned more about the number of people that watch the film than the money it makes.
He reveals, “I personally don’t equate box-office to anything. I think the number of people going to a cinema gives you some kind of feedback to knowing where your film stands. It gives you a clear understanding of how people are accepting it and what is happening on that front. The box-office is just a number, but it's the number of people which excites me. Audience footfall excites me more.”
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Audience footfall vs box-office estimates
When asked to explain his take, Sidhwani shares, “If you tell me ‘Mirzapur: The Movie’ is the 5th highest grosser of the year, I would not know what that means. Whatever the box office number is, I would divide that number by the amount of ticket prices to get an idea of how many people went to watch the film. With an average ticket price, which is about ₹130 to ₹140, I'll divide it to know how many million people have watched our movie.”
Sidhwani explains that knowing the audience's expectations also helps them plan future endeavors. He adds, “Then I’ll know what to do to engage more. When 10, 20 or 100 million people are watching a movie, how do we serve them? Knowing audience footfall helps us plan better for our next project. This is not true for every film, but it gives us a fair idea.”
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Understanding the difference
Audience footfalls refer to the number of theatrical admissions or tickets sold, essentially indicating how many times the film was watched in cinemas. Box-office numbers, on the other hand, refer to the revenue generated from those ticket sales. Footfalls therefore measure audience turnout, while box-office measures money earned and the two can vary depending on ticket prices, multiplex premiums, city-wise pricing and other factors.
‘Mirzapur: The Movie’ - Box office numbers
The Pankaj Tripathi, Divyenndu and Ali Fazal starrer has crossed the ₹200 crore mark in India within two weeks of its theatrical release. Sacnilk’s recent estimates state that it collected ₹3.75 crore net on its second Thursday, taking its India total to ₹203.20 crore. The film had opened at ₹25.75 crore on Sep. 4 and went on to collect ₹148.45 crore net in its first week.
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