Entertainment Original explainer
India makes more films than any country on Earth, yet has fewer than 10,000 screens. How the business works.
India makes more films than any country in the world. In a typical year, the Central Board of Film Certification clears more than 1,500 feature films in over 20 languages, from Hindi blockbusters to Malayalam art films. Yet the business behind those films is fragile. Most films lose money, only a handful become hits, and the industry has fewer than 10,000 screens for 1.4 billion people. Understanding how a film earns its money explains why Bollywood looks the way it does: star-driven, cautious, and increasingly shaped by streaming.
According to the FICCI-EY media and entertainment report, India's filmed entertainment segment earned about 18,700 crore rupees in 2024, down slightly from about 19,700 crore rupees in 2023. Gross domestic box office, the money collected at cinema counters, was about 11,800 crore rupees, according to tracking firm Ormax Media. India also sold more than 800 million cinema tickets in the year.
Hindi cinema, which the world calls Bollywood, is the largest single segment but no longer a majority. Hindi films, including Hindi-dubbed versions of South Indian films, account for roughly 40 to 45 per cent of domestic box office. Telugu films take about 18 to 20 per cent, Tamil about 14 to 16 per cent, and the rest is shared among Malayalam, Kannada and other languages. Some of the biggest Indian films of recent years have come from Hyderabad and Bengaluru, not Mumbai. Hindi films alone grossed about 5,280 crore rupees at the domestic box office in 2024.
A film is not one product but five, sold again and again to different buyers. The first is theatrical: ticket sales at cinemas, still the anchor of the business at roughly 60 to 65 per cent of revenue for many films. The second is digital rights, sold to streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, JioHotstar and others. The third is satellite rights, sold to television channels. The fourth is music rights, sold to labels and streaming services. The fifth is overseas theatrical and distribution, plus in-film advertising and brand placements.
The order matters. A film usually opens in cinemas, then moves to streaming after a few weeks, then to television. Each window is a separate sale. For a big star-led film, the streaming and satellite rights alone can recover a large part of the budget before a single ticket is sold. That pre-sale model is what keeps the industry running: it spreads the risk of a flop across several buyers.
Money flows in a chain. A producer raises the budget, often from a studio, a financier or their own company, and pays for the stars, the crew, the locations and the marketing. A distributor buys the right to release the film in a region and pays cinema owners, the exhibitors, to show it. Ticket revenue is then split between the exhibitor and the distributor, roughly half and half in the opening weeks, with the exhibitor's share rising over time.
Stars sit at the top of the cost chain. A top actor can take a large share of a film's budget, sometimes as a fee plus a share of profits. That is why so few films are made without a star: the star is what gets the film financed, distributed and noticed. It is also why the industry is cautious. A big star film that fails can sink a production company; a small film that succeeds can make its makers rich.
The biggest change in the last decade is streaming. According to FICCI-EY, digital rights overtook theatrical as the film segment's largest revenue line in 2024. That shift changed what gets made. Mid-budget Hindi films, the comedies and family dramas that once filled cinemas, now often go straight to streaming, because audiences will watch them at home but not pay for a cinema ticket. Cinemas, meanwhile, depend more and more on event films: big spectacles that people feel they must see on a large screen.
The shift also squeezed the middle. In 2024, collections of original Hindi films fell sharply, while Hindi-dubbed versions of South Indian films made up about 31 per cent of the Hindi box office total. The industry's response has been to make fewer, bigger films, and to lean on franchises and stars. The risk is that the variety that once defined Indian cinema narrows to what can fill a cinema hall on a Friday.
Films are a hit-driven business. A small number of releases earn most of the money, while the majority struggle to recover their costs. India has another structural problem: too few screens. With fewer than 10,000 screens, heavily concentrated in the south, most Indians have no cinema nearby, and each screen must earn far more than in countries with denser exhibition networks. Per-capita cinema visits in India lag far behind China and the United States.
Piracy, short theatrical windows and the high cost of marketing add to the pressure. Yet the industry keeps growing in reach: the three biggest box office years in Indian history have all come since the pandemic, and 2025 set a record with about 13,395 crore rupees in gross collections, according to Ormax Media. The audience is there. The challenge is turning a huge, diverse, price-sensitive audience into a business that rewards more than a handful of blockbusters a year.
That is the paradox of Indian cinema. It is the world's most prolific film industry and one of its most fragile businesses, built on stars, sustained by streaming, and forever one Friday away from its next hit.
This explainer was written by The Daily Short's desk from the sources listed above. It is general information, not professional advice. Spot an error? See our Corrections Policy or tell us via the Contact page and we will correct it. Follow our official Instagram @thedaily.short.