Lights, Camera, Scoop | 'F1', 'The Conjuring' and 'Avatar: Fire and Ash': Hollywood Aims for ₹1,400 Crore Finish at 2025 Indian Box-Office

Filmmaker James Cameron's latest spectacle, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is enjoying Christmas sparkle at the Indian box-office as the sci-fi epic has already emerged as the highest-grossing Hollywood film of the year in the country. While its ₹120 crore haul in eight days is below expectations for a franchise of its scale, the film has sustained the momentum of Hollywood releases in 2025, a year that is now tracking towards a cumulative gross of around ₹1,400 crore in India.

This has come on the heels of some exceptional performances this year, including Brad Pitt-led F1—which was the highest-grossing Hollywood film of the year before Avatar toppled it—Jurassic World Rebirth, The Conjuring: Last Rites and Demon Slayer, among others.

According to Shailesh Kapoor, Founder and CEO Ormax Media, Hollywood titles had grossed over ₹1,135 crore till November, accounting for roughly 10 per cent of the Indian box office. "If Avatar performs anywhere close to the previous film, it could add ₹300–400 crore on its own, taking the total to around ₹1,400 to 1,500 crore. That would push Hollywood’s share back up to 12–13 percent.”

Kapoor believes Hollywood’s India story in 2025 truly turned a corner only in the second half of the year. “The first four to five months were very weak,” he says, pointing to May as the inflection point, when Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning released.

The Tom Cruise-starrer arrived around mid-May and, while it didn’t meet the industry’s expectations in terms of box-office performance, Kapoor notes that the numbers still told a solid story. "From a content and buzz perspective, it under-delivered, but it still grossed about ₹120 crore in India. That made it the third-highest-grossing Hollywood film of the year back then, after F1 and Jurassic World Rebirth. The Conjuring was fourth, followed by Demon Slayer. So yes, one could argue it should have done more, but ₹120 crore is not a small number.”

According to Kapoor, most of the stronger Hollywood performers—Final Destination Bloodlines in May, Superman and Fantastic Four in July, and Demon Slayer in September—have all come in the latter half of the year. He links this directly to the ripple effects of the writers’ strike from two years ago.

“There was a pipeline issue in Hollywood that cascaded into India. Films that began production after the strike ended are now finally releasing, so what we’re seeing is supply returning to normalcy in terms of volume.”

That recovery, Kapoor says, is already reflecting in market share. Historically, Hollywood contributed around 12 to 13 percent of India’s box-office before the pandemic, a level that held till 2022. Last year, that dropped to about eight percent, and in 2023, it was roughly nine percent, largely because there were fewer releases and Marvel never really hit the Endgame highs.

Kapoor also dismisses the long-held belief that OTT penetration would permanently hurt Hollywood’s theatrical business in India. Many of these films are designed for IMAX, 3D, or immersive formats, whether it's F1 or horror titles like The Conjuring or The Nun, where the experience is the draw.

"The genres that get impacted by OTT are more drama-led films or biopics, where the experience is primarily narrative. But spectacle-driven films continue to bring people to theatres and that’s exactly what we saw play out in India this year," he concludes.