Traditional Hollywood narratives no longer generate the same level of enthusiasm among an evolving Indian viewer base that now enjoys Korean dramas, regional Indian cinema, and select international films more than ever before, they said.
“In the past ten years, the taste of the Indian audience has changed. Their appetite for Hollywood blockbusters and conventional narratives has come down,” said Sharad Mittal, founder of Kathputlee Arts & Films, a Mumbai-based film production house. “This is the audience which is exposed to Korean dramas and other international stuff. They are looking for specific family outing experiences in theatres, which Hollywood films are not providing.” Another big reason for the dip in collections is because recent superhero films have failed to live up to expectations, experts said. Superhero films have had a huge fan following among Indian audiences. According to Ormax Media, superhero films accounted for 50% of Hollywood’s box-office earnings in India at their peak in 2018. That share has now dropped to 27% in 2024. Industry experts blame it largely on creatively disappointing storytelling as well as a growing sense of superhero fatigue. Audiences around the world are feeling worn out by the sheer volume of cape-and-mask content coming out of Hollywood, they said. “Recently, Hollywood has been unable to create films which work on a global level,” said producer and film business expert Girish Johar. “A case in point is superhero films, which have a huge following in India. These films have failed to strike a chord with Indian audiences in recent years.” Experts said the decline is partly due to studios overloading films with messaging and tinkering too much with well-established intellectual properties. This, they argue, has alienated loyal fans and made it harder to attract new audiences to these once-reliable franchises.
“Creative changes in already established IPs of studios are disappointing the loyal fan base of these IPs,” said Ameya Naik, producer and founder of Fantasy Films, an event management company. “Studios are focusing too much on messaging, which is hampering storytelling and not serving well their existing IPs. This has impacted the overall footfalls for Hollywood films. They must create new IPs if they are keen on sharing a worldview which they are passionate about.” Recently, Disney’s Snow White (2025), which has a global appeal and was made on a budget of $240-$270 million, flopped. This was because of creative changes in the IP, which did not go down well with its audiences, trade analysts said. According to Box Office Mojo, Snow White-released in the US on March 21-has collected over $183 million, much below its production cost. In India, too, the film did not get an enthusiastic response, collecting ₹4.54 crore in its first week. In comparison, superhero film Avengers: Endgame (2019), which marked the end of the first phase of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), collected ₹438 crore in India. Hollywood’s global box-office revenue fell 11.5% to an estimated $30 billion in 2024 from 33.9 billion in 2023, according to Gower Street Analytics, as studios are struggling to revive cinema-going habits even as films are releasing faster on streaming platforms.
