With Border 2 , 2026 began on a high at the box office with the film emerging a commercial success crossing a collection of ₹ 300 crore. It set the ball rolling, and through the year, films like Dhurandhar The Revenge , Cocktail 2, Welcome To The Jungle, Dhamaal 4, Awarapan 2, and more recently, Drishyam 3 have kept the cash registers ringing, and proving that this year, it has been the year of franchise films. But why has the audience responded so well to these IPs this year?
This year, Dhurandhar The Revenge, Dhamaal 4, Awarapan 2 and now Drishyam 3, are all very well made films with tremendous recall value. Had Drishyam 3 not been a tale as well told, it perhaps wouldn’t have done as well as it did. He adds, “Awarapan was a flop, but Awarapan 2 ended up becoming Emraan Hashmi’s biggest film till date. Films like Drishyam 3, Welcome To The Jungle, they were family entertainers, and they were rightly promoted that way,” he says. Mohan says that overall, it has been a good year for Bollywood thanks to franchise films, and he is hopeful for next year too as it starts with another anticipated sequel, Golmaal 5.
“A franchise always has a recollect value, and it can attract the audience on day one, but then the content has to do the talking. Franchise films do give a familiarity to the world of the story, but beyond that, it’s purely the merit of the content that takes a film ahead. Here, the franchise value’s familiarity gave the film wings to fly. Mohan adds that making more family entertainers proved to be an advantage. “There were more neat, family entertainers this time. For a long time, families had been waiting to come together to watch a film in cinema halls, and this year the franchise films gave them that chance.
Trade analyst Taran Adarsh says while the familiarity can bring in a good opening, it’s the content that sustains the film. Some of them have characters whose stories you are invested in like in Dhurandhar and Drishyam,” he says. Film distributor Akkshay Rathie agrees with the sentiment as he says, “Every year has its share of franchise films do well, but what has worked this year is great, engaging storytelling. “Golmaal, as a brand, has been the most successful film franchise so far with all four instalments having been hugely popular and successful, so we are hoping 2027 starts with a bang,” he says.
