MUMBAI: There were several South releases, and many of them out-performed Ormax Cinematix’s box office forecasts (FBO) in December 2025. Of the nine releases, five (‘Mark’, ’45’, ‘Champion’, ‘Eesha’ and ‘Shambhala’) released on the Christmas holiday, i.e., 25 December. This is the first major instance in recent years of so many releases on 25 December 2025, and the FBO Model under-estimated the impact of this holiday because of no precedence available.
This story summarises Ormax Cinematix’s box office forecasts (FBO) for all major December 2025 releases vis-Ã -vis their actual box-office openings
Major Hindi Releases: There were three major Hindi releases in December 2025, and two of them saw a boost in their first-day box office because of inorganic methods, often termed as ‘corporate booking’ in the industry. The term refers to the producer or their affiliates buying tickets, to boost the box office of the film. Sometimes, these tickets are given out as freebies, and at other times, they are not used at all, which means that tickets are “sold”, but there are no commensurate footfalls.
Ormax Cinematix’s FBO forecast model is not designed to handle this inorganic boost to the box office. ‘Dhurandhar’s first-day box office was forecast at Rs. 19.5 Crores nett, while its actual first-day box office Rs. 24 Crores nett has a sizeable inorganic component in it. ‘Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri’ was also boosted by an inorganic component in its first-day box office.
The other major Hindi release, ‘Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon 2’, opened higher than its FBO of Rs. 1.2 Crores nett, collecting Rs. 1.8 Crores nett on its first day.
The second installment of the ‘Akhanda’ franchise had a pan India release in December 2025. The film performed as per its forecast in the home market (AP-Telangana), with a deviation of only 9%. In Karnataka, the collections were a notch above the forecast. The collections in Kerala and the Hindi markets were minimal.
Hollywood: The two major Hollywood releases of the month were forecast with reasonable accuracy, with ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ being over-reported by 20%, as the succesful theatrical run of ‘Dhurandhar’ prevented the film from achieving its true potential on its first day.
There were no major Tamil (original language), Punjabi or Marathi language releases in December 2025 that collected Rs. 1 Crore or more on their opening day.
