As the first half of 2026 drew to a close on 30 June, NationPress spoke with veteran theatre owners across India to assess the state of the exhibition business and decode what the numbers mean for Hindi cinema's recovery.

Struggles at the Ticket Counter

Manoj Desai, owner of the iconic Gaiety Galaxy in Mumbai — one of India's oldest single-screen theatres — offered a candid assessment of Bollywood's first-half performance. According to Desai, the industry is still fighting an uphill battle, with only a handful of releases making a meaningful dent at the box office.

'Except for a few movies such as Dhurandhar and Border 2, not many movies have done great business at the ticket counters, which is not a good sign for the industry,' he said. Desai attributed much of the struggle to the dominance of OTT platforms, which he argued have fundamentally altered audience behaviour. 'In the era of OTT, people are not too keen to come to the theatre,' he noted, adding that exhibitors now feel relieved if a film sustains even a single week of healthy footfall.

He pointed to Akshay Kumar's Welcome To The Jungle as a cautionary tale — a film that 'could not sustain, even with such a massive star cast.' When asked what drives audiences to cinemas today, Desai was unequivocal: content, followed closely by music, which he said plays a crucial role in forging an emotional connection with viewers.

Desai also flagged a trend that he described as surprising — South Indian films consistently outperforming Bollywood releases at Mumbai's single-screen theatres, a market that was historically the heartland of Hindi cinema.

A More Optimistic Reading from Bihar

Vishak Chauhan, a fourth-generation theatre owner from Purnia, Bihar, offered a notably more upbeat perspective on the same six-month period. For Chauhan, the first half of 2026 has been 'fairly decent,' with several titles delivering genuine box office success across geographies.

He cited Dhurandhar, Border 2, Bhooth Bangla, and Welcome To The Jungle as films that worked across the country — not just in metropolitan multiplexes. He attributed this to a structural shift in how filmmakers are approaching their craft. 'They are making very basic films on basic subjects, and the treatment of their movies is also extremely grounded,' Chauhan said, adding that the industry appears to be moving away from urban-centric storytelling and returning to universal, rooted narratives.

Surprise Performers and Niche Wins

Chauhan identified Haunted — a sequel to Vikram Bhatt's earlier film of the same name — as the most unexpected success story of the half-year for his circuit. He also highlighted Imtiaz Ali's Main Vapas Aaunga, a film initially targeted at elite multiplex audiences, which gradually built momentum and delivered solid box office returns.

This pattern of slow-burn successes is, according to Chauhan, a healthy indicator for the ecosystem. 'I think it is a very healthy scenario for movie theatres, exhibitors, distributors, producers, that people are ready to watch all kinds of cinema — all you need to do is make commercially viable movies,' he said.

What the Divergence Reveals

The contrasting views from Mumbai and Purnia reflect a broader fault line in the Indian exhibition business: the experience of a legacy single-screen operator in a metro is vastly different from that of a theatre owner serving a Tier-2 audience. This comes amid an ongoing structural debate about whether Bollywood's recovery is real or concentrated in pockets. Notably, the titles that both exhibitors agreed upon — Dhurandhar and Border 2 — were content-driven, high-concept films, reinforcing the industry consensus that spectacle alone no longer guarantees footfall. The second half of 2026 will be a sharper test, with several major releases lined up across languages.