The top 3 Hollywood films for 2024 in India including Kung Fu Panda 4 and Dune 2 are all from the WMD stable or are distributed by the company, said its top executive of the region.
Together the trio have already grossed over Rs 175 crores in theatres in the country so far. These films made it to the top 10 films for the month of March, as per Ormax, a media consulting firm. This, in a market, where Hollywood productions (including dubbed versions) contribute just a tenth of all-India films.
“With people coming back in droves to theatres, we are seeing 100 percent increase in box office collections for us, and it’s the highest ever that WBD’s theatrical and distribution teams in India has ever recorded in terms of revenues,” said Arjun Nohwar, GM, South Asia, Warner Bros. Discovery.
In 2023, with Rs 630 crores gross box office (GBO) collections for Warner Bros. and Universal films, the company cornered over half of the market share. Building on that momentum, though still early in the year, in the first 4 months WBD has dominated the space with more than 90% of the market share in India with Rs 200 crore GBO to date.
Dubbing popular titles into regional languages have helped WB & Universal films to appeal to masses. In 2023, close to 60% of box office billings for FastX came from dubbed versions while the original English version contributed 41% of sales. For Godzilla x Kong, 21% of sales have come from Tamil Nadu alone, when there were no Tamil films in the Top 10 movies of March. “The popularity of these films is not restricted to the theatres,” said Nohwar. “These films can also be watched on the Jio Cinema platform when released subsequently.”Instead of launching its own streaming service Max (formerly HBO Max) in India, last year WBD signed a content licensing agreement till 2026 with Jio Cinema last April to showcase its original movie and shows catalogue that includes Succession, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series among others on Reliance’s app. The development came a month after WBD parted ways with its long time digital partner Disney+ Hotstar. Earlier in 2020, HBO ceased to exist as a linear movie channel across the pay TV universe in the Indian subcontinent.Despite the theatrical successes of its international movies, WBD is not keen to immediately revive its production arm in one of the largest movie markets in the world after an unsuccessful attempt in 2010-11. Nohwar, however, said it cannot be “ruled out in the near future.”
Following the 2022 spin off of Warner Media from AT&T and merger with Discovery Inc, the priority has been on profitable growth. That influenced the original decision of launching Max – the 2nd most profitable streaming service globally after Netflix — in India on hold and opting for a strategic content partnership with Jio Cinema instead to tap into their “400 million plus subscriber base.”
Nohwar however remains non-committal if the company is planning to launch Max locally once the time bound agreement ends with Jio , simply saying we will “evaluate” what is the right India thesis for us — Launching Max, or a partnership or “ by continuing to license.” The challenge he says is to feed a platform with enough local content for it to be a local success, but simultaneously achieve scale and a healthy balance sheet.
WBD, in India, is a unique media conglomerate as it straddles 5 different businesses – more than any of its global peers present in the country. Its largest vertical is the network operations that beams 19 feeds or channels such as Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC; Kids channels like Cartoon Network, Pogo, Discovery Kids; Sports broadcast with Eurosport and its News platform, CNN.
The second vertical is the streaming platform, discovery+ third is the theatrical business that releases, markets and distributes Warner Bros. and Universal Studios movies, while the fourth is the TV distribution and licensing business that licenses shows to OTT players like Jio Cinema. Merchandising or Consumer Products, and Gaming is the smallest but fast growing vertical.
“Our greatest strength is our ability to monetize our collection of content in multiple ways through a broad distribution strategy designed to optimize asset value. For instance, we have continued to leverage partnerships locally with players such as Jio, Tata Play Binge and Dish TV Watcho to expand the reach and engagement of the discovery+ platform”, adds Nohwar.
The company continues to invest in Indian originals for their linear and streaming platform, discovery+. “Our investment in Indian originals is geared towards boosting engagement, expanding market share and solidifying our position as the leading network for non-fiction content in India”, says Nohwar. “It’s equally strong even across the network on account of the large global Indian diaspora.”
Talking about media consolidation around the world including India, Nohwar said a lot of this has to do with concentration of capital and the flight of some of that across different markets. Disney chose to consolidate its global operations and as a part of that merged its India business with Mukesh Ambani led Viacom 18.
“India has seen its own fair share of mergers closing and some of them as near misses (Read: Zee-Sony). When we look at the Indian landscape, we will look at opportunistic partnerships that would help us to profitably expand our presence in the market.”
