Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, Tom Cruise’s MI augur well for PVR Inox in Q2

National Box Office Collections (NBOC) for Bollywood and Hollywood genre (excluding regional movies) declined 14.6 per cent annually to Rs 960 crore in first quarter of current financial year, brokerage firm Prabhudas Lilladher said in a report authored by analyst Jinesh Joshi. 

While The Kerala Story turned out to be a sleeper hit, subdued collections from movies like Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (Rs 110 crore) and Adipurush (Rs 280 crore considered as sub-par given the budget and huge expectations surrounding the movie that had pan-India appeal) impacted overall performance for the quarter.

Hopes from September quarter

Going ahead current quarter that is the second quarter of current financial year augurs well for movie exhibitor PVR Inox given a whole host of Hollywood and Bollywood films slated to release starting with Tom Cruse starrer Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Next month Sunny Deol starrer Gadar 2 and Akshay Kumar’s OMG 2 are also slated to release and in September Shahrukh Khan’s Jawan will be released.

“Christopher Nolan movie is coming after a long time and given it is a documentary drama and not a Marvel movie that has wide fan base in India, excitement surrounding it is certainly a positive,” Joshi told Republic.

High demand for Oppenheimer and Mission Impossible

Oppenheimer was witnessing very strong demand for its tickets as data on Book My Show, popular ticket booking website, showed most of the shows on IMAX getting filled fast over the weekend in Delhi. The movie is slated to release on Friday, July 21.

In Mumbai also all the cinema halls which will screen the movie in IMAX were getting filled fast for the weekend.

“Given Mission Impossible has already collected Rs 70 crore so far, a good start from Oppenheimer will certainly bode well for PVR Inox,” Joshi said.

“It is pre-emptive to comment on what life time collections could be for a Christopher Nolan movie given he deals in complex subjects and the content majorly appeals to limited set of audience (metro/tier-1 markets) in India, if the opening weekend is upwards of Rs 30-40 crore, the movie may well be on track for a respectable collection figure over its full theatrical run,” he added.

Prabhudas Lilladher has buy rating on PVR Inox for target price of Rs 1,704, indicating an upside of 21 per cent from Tuesday’s closing price of Rs 1,403.85 as content pipeline for near-term is healthy with movies like Gadar-2, Oh My God-2, Jawan, Dream Girl-2, MI-Dead Reckoning and Oppenheimer in the pipeline.