Hollywood v/s Bollywood: Avatar 2 Beats Brahmastra, Drishyam 2 Beats Spider-Man: No Way Home Lifetime Earning

What a weekend it was for the Hollywood as well as Bollywood releases. For quite some time it is being said that Hollywood is making deep inroads into India. The super success of several Marvel movies in quick succession has made this thought process further strong. More so, when in the last 12 odd months there were hardly any Hindi movies that succeeded but from Hollywood, there were indeed a few good commercial successes.

Well, there was further fuel to the fire added over the weekend gone by when Avatar: The Way of War came, saw and conquered, and that too in a very big way. The film took a huge opening of 41 crores and then went on to score a massive weekend of 128 crores*. Apart from the fact that the collections are next only to Avengers: End Game which holds the record for a Hollywood film with the biggest opening day [53.10 crores], opening weekend [157.20 crores], opening week [260.40 crores] and lifetime [364.00 crores] in India, there is more!

So what was it? Well, the James Cameron directed action drama also managed to edge out Brahmastra and that's a huge feat indeed. The Ayan Mukherji directed VFX affair was huge in India with a first day number of 37 crores followed by weekend of 122 crores. While that was massive indeed and only topped by the Hindi version of KGF - Chapter 2 which released earlier this year and went berserk, the fact that Avatar: The Way of Water topped that up both in terms of first day and weekend collections is commendable indeed.

As a matter of fact, while Brahmastra had the first week collections of 170 crores, Avatar: The Way of Water should surpass that in a matter of 5 days at maximum. As for the lifetime collections of 264 crores that the Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt starrer enjoyed, the Hollywood biggie should go past even that by the close of the second week.

Of course, none of it takes away from the fact that Brahmastra stays on to be a biggie by all means, and it's in fact a matter of pride for the film that it is being spoken about in the same breath as Avatar: The Way of Water. After all, the Hollywood biggie is an epic saga that was in the making for over a decade and has a budget which is quite a few times bigger than that of Brahmastra. On the other hand, Brahmastra stays on to be the biggest Bollywood grosser of 2022 and the only movie left to challenge it now is Cirkus which released this Friday.

Meanwhile, there is something opposite too that has happened this weekend, what with Bollywood defeating Hollywood, and that too in an unlikely of competition. As is a known fact, Spider-Man: No Way Home released late last year and was one of the only few successes that Indian screens had seen post-pandemic. That film had enjoyed a lifetime collections of 218.41 crores and that's huge since it was difficult to even get people back to theatres. However, the Marvel film did that in style, and emerged as a well deserved blockbuster.

Well, Drishyam 2 has now gone one up over that by edging past these lifetime numbers and that too in a matter of fifth weekend itself. The film currently stands at 221.35 crores and that's phenomenal since it is poles apart when compared to the popular Spider-Man franchise that that has stayed on with Indian audiences for many a decades, ever since the animated character made its way to the comics and TV screens. This isn't all as even in the world of movies, Spider-Man has stayed on to be one of the most popular characters seen at the big screen.

Still Drishyam 2, which is a film that has been created in a world of its own, has managed to go past the VFX biggie and is heading towards the 230 crores mark. A well deserved blockbuster.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited