If one film could decide the fate of an entire month at the box office, then Stree 2 was that film for August. Roping in more than half of the month’s collection all by itself, the Amar Kaushik-directed blockbuster single-handedly made August the highest-grossing month of 2024 so far, with a tally of Rs 1,291 crore (Rs 40 crore ahead of June). This in spite of the fact that no other film crossed the Rs 100 crore mark in the month, as per the India Box Office Report by Ormax Media.
With a stellar cast of Shraddha Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Tripathi in top form, Stree 2 bagged Rs 680 crore in August. This means that only Kalki 2898 AD (Rs 774 crore) has made more across all language versions in 2024. Stree 2’s stupendous success has also made it the highest-grossing Hindi film of all time, beating Jawan (Rs 673 crore) from last year. Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Jawan still leads when it comes to lifetime collections across all language versions with a kitty of Rs 734 crore.
Following Stree 2 in August — with a chasm in between — is Saripodhaa Sanivaaram, a Telugu vigilante action film, which accumulated Rs 77 crore. Another action adventure, Thangalaan in Tamil, closed out August with Rs 59 crore, good enough for third place. In fourth, Khel Khel Mein, an ensemble comedy helmed by Akshay Kumar, earned Rs 48 crore, while the Tamil film Demonte Colony 2, combining supernatural horror with elements of a thriller, sealed fifth place with Rs 44 crore.
Despite August’s outstanding performance, the cumulative box office numbers for the first eight months of this year are 7.5 per cent below last year’s, standing at Rs 6,868 crore. At this rate, 2024 will hit Rs 10,302 crore for the entire year, well short of 2023’s record-breaking mark of Rs 12,226 crore.
In terms of language share for the calendar year, Hindi, riding high on Stree 2, witnessed a noticeable jump to move to 40 per cent, with Telugu (19 per cent) and Tamil (13 per cent) in second and third, respectively.