After a lukewarm July, Indian cinema on the big screen has bounced back strongly with a total of Rs 755 crore grossed at the box office in August 2022. According to The India Box Office Report, prepared by Ormax Media (India’s first specialised insights consulting firm for media and entertainment), August was the most profitable month for celluloid in 2022 since April, when the collection rose to Rs 1,484 crore. As of now, March, which accumulated Rs 1,665 crore, still leads the way for monthly collections.

While different language industries use different parameters for assessing box office numbers (Gross, Nett or Share), Ormax’s report adopts Gross Box Office as the unified measurement. Under this, a film’s collection is always attributed to the month of its release, even if the film goes on to produce more or better numbers in the subsequent months. For films released in multiple languages, box office numbers reflect the contribution of such films to all the corresponding languages.

South Indian films dominate; Laal Singh Chaddha tanks

Four of the five highest-grossing films in August belong to either Tamil or Telugu. At the summit for August is the Telugu adventure mystery, Karthikeya 2, which bagged Rs 91 crore at the box office. Narrowly behind it is Dhanush’s Tamil slice-of-life comedy drama, Thiruchitrambalam, which closed out last month at Rs 89 crore.

In third place comes the much anticipated Laal Singh Chaddha, the Bollywood remake of Forrest Gump, starring Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan. As per Ormax’s numbers, Laal Singh Chaddha failed to live up to the hype and could only muster Rs 73 crore at the box office.

Sita Ramam, the Telugu romance starring Dulquer Salman, Mrunal Thakur and Rashmika Mandanna, registers fourth on the list with a collection of Rs 63 crore, followed by Viruman, a Tamil masala film that fetched Rs 55 crore, in August. Akshay Kumar’s Raksha Bandhan and Vijay Deverakonda’s Liger languish in sixth and eight places, respectively, with collections of Rs 55 crore and Rs 51 crore.

K.G.F. Chapter 2 and RRR are still in a league of their own

With the box office entering the last quarter of 2022, there is yet to be a change at the top when it comes to the highest-grossing films of the year. K.G.F. Chapter 2 still leads the way with a whopping sum of Rs 970 crore, with RRR comfortably holding onto second spot at Rs 869 crore.

The Kashmir Files continues to lead Bollywood releases with a collection of Rs 292 crore, a mark that Brahmastra could match or beat in September’s report. The data from August shows that a total of Rs 7,105 crore has been amassed at the box office this year, which puts 2022 in contention to surpass 2019 (which ended at Rs 10,948 crore) as the best-ever box office year in India.

To do so, the remaining four months of the year would have to average at least Rs 960 crore, something three months (March, April and May) have already done in 2022. Two big releases are lined up for a face-off on the last Friday of September — Mani Ratnam’s multistarrer Ponniyin Selvan: I and the Hrithik Roshan-Saif Ali Khan-starrer Vikram Vedha.

With the Diwali and Christmas period also beckoning and big Hollywood releases like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of Water to come, 2022 seems to be on track to make box office history.

As for the language share of the box office thus far in 2022, there is hardly any change from last month’s percentages. Hindi continues to lead, even though its share has slipped from 34 to 33 per cent at the end of August. Telugu remains at 24 per cent, while Tamil has improved marginally to move up to 16 per cent.