Films released in February gross INR 1,245 crores on box office: Report

Following a strong opening for 2025 in January, the Indian box office retained momentum even in February 2025, with domestic box office collections in the month reaching INR 1,245 crores. The Laxman Utekar-directed Hindi film Chhaava, produced by Maddock Films, alone contributed 53% to the total box office collections during February.

This was revealed in ‘The India Box Office Report: February 2025’ released by Ormax Media. The report considered only the Hindi language revenues of the Sambhaji Maharaj fictional biopic as the Telugu version of the film was released in March 2025.

The second spot for February 2025 was grabbed by the Tamil film, Dragon, with INR 122 crores in box office collection. Interestingly, Dragon surpassed the box office revenues of even the big-budget Tamil film Vidaamuyarchi, which stood third with INR 96 crores in box office revenues.

The total box office collection for the year 2025 releases has been INR 2,264 crores—nearly 39% higher than the corresponding period last year. February 2025 has also been the highest-grossing February post-pandemic, the report mentions.

Observing that re-releases have been a strong trend, the Ormax report mentions ‘Sanam Teri Kasam’ and ‘Interstellar’ featured in the list of the 10 highest-grossing films of February. With the addition of Thandel in February, there were four Telugu films in the top 10 highest-grossing films list for 2025 so far. The list features three films each from both Hindi and Tamil languages.

Due to Chhaava’s performance, Hindi’s language share jumped to 45% for January-February 2025, compared to 40% for the calendar year 2024. Following Hindi, the other languages that dominated India’s box office collections during February 2025 were Telugu (26%), Tamil (15%), and Malayalam (7%). The Hollywood movies across languages (original and dubbed versions) controlled a 3% share of box office collection for the month.

Among movies, the Telugu-language action comedy film, Sankranthiki Vasthunam grossed INR 222 crores combining all language versions standing second after Chhaava. Another Telugu-language political action thriller Game Changer grossed INR 153 crores for all language versions combined, standing third in the top 10 list across language versions combined.

Cinema advertising continues to hold sway over consumer choices, with 42% of moviegoers citing ads as influential in purchase decisions, according to GroupM’s Profiling Cinemagoers report. The study, conducted across Bengaluru, Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, and Hyderabad, highlights cinema’s role in the ‘out-of-home economy,’ with 858 million footfalls and a Gross Box Office Collection (GBOC) of INR 12.38 billion.

The report, based on a survey of 1,075 individuals aged 18-44, examines cinema’s evolving significance in entertainment and advertising. Meanwhile, in Bengaluru, a district consumer forum ruled against PVR, directing it to display the actual movie start time on tickets rather than the time post-advertisements.

The order followed a complaint by Abhishek MR, who alleged that PVR, BookMyShow, and INOX wasted 23 minutes of his time with commercial ads before Sam Bahadur in December 2023. The forum fined PVR INR 1 lakh for unfair trade practices and awarded INR 28,000 to the complainant for inconvenience and legal costs.