August roared almost as loudly at the box office as Sunny Deol in Gadar 2. Carrying forward the momentum from the past three months, August emerged as the most successful month of 2023 at the cinemas with a collection of Rs 1,610 crore, as per The India Box Office Report by Ormax Media. This also made August the best performing month at the box office since March 2022, which saw two blockbusters in RRR and The Kashmir Files.

While different language industries use different parameters for assessing box office numbers (Gross, Nett or Share), Ormax’s report adopts Gross Box Office as the unified measurement. Under this, a film’s collection is always attributed to the month of its release, even if the film goes on to produce more or better numbers in the subsequent months. For films released in multiple languages, box office numbers reflect the contribution of such films to all the corresponding languages.

Four films surpassed the Rs 100-crore mark in August, with Gadar 2 leading the pack with a humongous collection of Rs 614 crore. Powered by Sunny Deol’s inimitable action and a healthy dose of nostalgia (the original Gadar had released in 2001), Gadar 2 belonged to a league of its own in August.

In a distant second place for the month, with an impressive performance in its own right, was Jailer, with Rajinikanth’s showmanship proving good enough to bag Rs 397 crore. The third place went to OMG 2, whose progressive messaging through Akshay Kumar and Pankaj Tripathi struck a chord and drove the film to collect Rs 169 crore.

Despite being the biggest commercial hit of Ayushmann Khurrana’s career so far, Dream Girl 2 only finished fourth in the August standings, bringing home Rs 115 crore. RDX, a Malayalam action thriller, closed out August with Rs 51 crore, which sealed fifth place. A special mention should be reserved for 3 Ekka, a Gujarati drama whose tally of Rs 37 crore gave it the eighth place for the month but also set it on its way to be the highest-grossing Gujarati film of all time.

Gadar 2 closes in on Pathaan

After holding on to box office supremacy since January, Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan (at Rs 646 crore) is now looking over its shoulder, since Gadar 2 is hurtling forward to close the gap. Should Gadar 2 make another Rs 32 crore or more in September, it will surpass Pathaan to create a new domestic record. To underline August’s success further, Jailer also made its way into the five highest-grossing films of 2023, leapfrogging Adipurush (Rs 331 crore) to take over the third spot.

August’s superb performance at the box office means 2023 now has a cumulative collection of Rs 7,444 crore, which is four per cent higher than at the same point last year. At its current rate, 2023 is on track to create box office history by being the first year to touch the figure of Rs 11,000 crore, something that looks even more achievable with the grand opening of Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Jawan in September (whose exact numbers will be out next month in Ormax’s report).

In terms of language share, Gadar 2 and OMG 2 came together to help boost Hindi’s share from 35 to 39 per cent, which is six per cent higher than the same period in 2022. Telugu and Tamil tied for second place, with 17 per cent apiece.