Ticket sales worth millions, but how accurate are the claims?

Eight days have passed since the release of this year’s Eid films, but confusion continues to surround their box office performance in Dhallywood.

Every day, different film-related groups and pages are releasing conflicting figures for the same movies. For one film, some claim earnings of Tk 40 million (Tk 4 crore), while others report only Tk 20 million (Tk 2 crore). These wildly varying numbers have left audiences and industry insiders confused.

Many of these reports cite Star Cineplex as their source. However, Mesbah Uddin Ahmed, Senior Manager of Media and Marketing at Star Cineplex, clarified that the cinema chain has not issued any official statement on film earnings.

“We have not made any comment regarding revenue figures,” he said. “Those who mention us are simply using our online ticket sales data and the number of shows to make their own estimates.”

He added that some of the information could be reasonably accurate — for example, by checking how many shows were houseful and how many seats remained empty — since such details are easily available online these days.

People associated with the Eid releases believe that while the earnings of one or two films may be somewhat close to reality, most of the circulating figures are rough estimations. Some even suggest that certain parties are deliberately spreading misleading information.

Shahriar Shakil, producer of the film Domm, said: “Our film is doing well, but most of the revenue figures being shared in different places are not accurate. Some are completely fabricated. Since there is no official box office tracking system in Bangladesh, we have decided not to disclose any figures at this stage.”

Director Tanim Noor of Bonolota Express also expressed similar frustration. He said he has seen many different and conflicting reports about his film’s earnings.

“We always prefer to share accurate data,” he stated. “After Eid, we officially released the ticket sales for the first four days, which crossed Tk 10 million (Tk 1 crore). Yesterday, we published the eight-day collection, which stands at Tk 22.6 million (Tk 2.26 crore).”

He added that many people have taken the correct figures from their official page, which is welcome. However, some are still claiming the earnings are only between Tk 10 million and Tk 20 million, which is incorrect. “Those lower figures actually refer to gross sales, not the final numbers,” he clarified.

Out of the five major films released during Eid, the remaining three — Prince, Rakkhosh, and Pressure Cooker — have not yet released any official earnings data.