3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Feb 3, 2025 09:24 AM IST
Sky Force is being touted as Akshay Kumar’s first film in three years that is heading towards being profitable, and Veer Pahariya’s ‘succesful’ debut. However, the film that reportedly earned around Rs 80 crore in week 1 and over Rs 100 crore till now, as per makers, appears to be a ‘manufactured success’ with a large part of box office figures coming via block seats or self buying.
The film, directed by Abhishek Anil Kapur, and Sandeep Kewlani, earned Rs 99.7 crore in its first week, according to the producers of the film. The official Instagram page of Dinesh Vijan’s Maddock Films claimed the film earned Rs 111.7 crore India net in nine days. However, trade analysts refuse to accept it.
Industry tracker Komal Nahta has dismissed the claims. Explaining the day wise collection of the film for the first week, Komal Nahta wrote, “The total for 1st week was Rs. 40.50 crore. Of course, the records will show total collections of Rs. 80 crore but that’s because heavy block booking of the unsold tickets was done on each single day of the first week to give the impression that the film was performing extraordinarily at the ticket counters. This was, perhaps, the maximum block bookings anyone had ever done in the history of Bollywood. Proof of this lay in the fact that a housefull or near-housefull scenario on BookMyShow.com coincided with near-empty cinema halls because there was no public to fill the seats which were block-booked.”
He also claimed that initially the block bookings were done across the country and in multiplexes and cinemas belonging to the national chains. “It was later restricted mainly to PVR Inox Chain of cinemas because PVR Inox Pictures is the all-India distributor of the film,” he wrote on filminformation.com.
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What are block seats?
The terms “corporate booking” and “self-buying” has been in the news for long after many Bollywood films were accused of boosting their box office numbers by self-buying their film tickets or actors making the brands associated with them buy tickets of their latest films in bulk and distribute it to their staff or consumers, and deduct the money from their fees.
Previously, SCREEN spoke to many industry insiders who shared details about “organic numbers”, “corporate booking”, “self-booking”, and “inorganic numbers” to explain the trend.
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A source told SCREEN, “When producers and actors realise that they won’t get a huge boost from corporate booking and when they can’t just randomly self-buy and have no one turn up for the shows, they check with educational institutions. You buy tickets yourself, but give it to schools and colleges, to make it look authentic. It’s the makers’ money, but when it results in people or kids showing up, the picture it paints is that it is organic. But it isn’t.”
On Sunday, Sky Force earned Rs 5.25 crore, according to Sacnilk. The film, which also marks the debut of Veer Pahariya, is reportedly made on a budget of Rs 160 crore.
Makers of Sky Force accused of block booking seats to boost box office numbers. (Photo: Maddock Films/Instagram)