Exclusive Interview: Decoding Spider-Man Brand New Day’s Box Office Tornado With Sony Pictures’ Shony Panjikaran, “We Knew It Would Surpass Avatar: The Way Of Water, The Pace Surprised Us!”

By Trisha Gaur

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has done more than just top the box office in India. With a net box office collection of almost 479 crore in India in 22 days, the film broke almost every single box office record that exists for a Hollywood release in India! We sat for a very long conversation with Shony Panjikaran, General Manager & Head- Sony Pictures Releasing International to decode the enormous success of the film in India!

To understand how Sony Pictures pulled off a release of this scale, and what it means for the future of Hollywood cinema in India, Koimoi, and Shony Panjikaran discussed the screen counts, marketing strategy, tier-three audiences, and why Spider-Man may be India’s most relatable superhero.

Spider-Man Brand New Day Was Present On Every Screen!

Talking about the scale of the film, Shony elaborated, “It’s definitely the widest Hollywood release of all time. We started off with about 5,300–5,400 screens, which is huge not just by Hollywood benchmarks but for any Indian film. To put that in context, India operationally has around 10,000 screens right now, but Hollywood only releases in 2K format, and there are only about 5,500 2K screens in the country. So we were present on almost every 2K screen possible.”