With cinephiles starting to throng multiplexes after the long lull due to COVID-19 pandemic forced restrictions, movies are getting expected returns for producers and theatre owners. A look at the data from June 3, Friday, to June 5, Sunday, shows that both Kamal Haasan-starrer Vikram and Akshay Kumar-starrer Samrat Prithviraj gave decent returns.

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During an interview with CNBC-TV18, Kamal Gianchandani, the chief strategy officer at PVR and CEO at PVR Pictures, expressed satisfaction with the collections and said that Vikram, the Tamil action thriller film written and directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, made "double the money that PVR had hoped for in the opening weekend."

According to some reports, Vikram minted over Rs 150 crore worldwide, including over Rs 100 crore in India, by Day 3 and Prithviraj's collection stands at Rs 39-40 crores.

He highlighted the mismatch in expectation and the actual performance by giving a comparison with Prithviraj. "A lot of people expected Prithviraj to do about Rs 50 crore in terms of weekend net box office. It will do about Rs 40-45 crore and we are fairly satisfied with the outcome," Gianchandani, also the president of the Multiplex Association of India, said.

Meanwhile, Tom Cruise starter, Top Gun Maverick, which has minted more than $500 million globally, has had an average first week, netting close to Rs 20 crore versus expectations of around Rs 50 crore, as per koimoi.com.

"KGF 2 has done almost Rs 425 crore in Hindi alone. Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada is a separate number... Even if it (KGF 2) had done about Rs 100 crore of net box office in Hindi, exhibitors would have been more than happy," said Gianchandani.

The company expects the current financial year to beat all records.

"FY23 will be our best year in terms of box office," the PVR Pictures CEO said. PVR stock has rallied 2.3 percent in the past three months, while in the same period, the benchmark, Nifty50, was down just over 2 percent.