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In India, both Bollywood and Hollywood movies are released in cinema hall only on Friday. What is the reason?

What I think is that because after Friday you have two days of weekend holiday (Saturday and Sunday) to enjoy the movie.

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  • Friday followed by 2 days weekend. So, the probability of people who watch movies will be more on these two days so the makers can get good amount of money in early days
    – Sayyapureddy Srinivas
    Commented Sep 13, 2017 at 11:59
  • Friday is a holiday for people in tertiary sector
    – Abhishek Choudhary
    Commented May 20, 2018 at 8:50

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The same question was asked to The Times of India and the answer by Jayant Mukherjee was: (emphasis added)

The release of films in India follows the American style. There a film is released on Friday so that people can watch the film with their family during the work-free weekends (Saturday and Sunday) leading to good opening collection.

So it's not an India-only thing, we picked up this method from western countries.

From ScoopWhoop:

However, the trend of releasing movies on a Friday didn't start in India until the late 1950s. Neel Kamal released on 24th March, 1947, which was a Monday. Mughal-E-Azam was among the first movies to be released on 5th August, 1960, a Friday. So we ended up adopting the British/American legacy after all, in the late 1950s.

Also, Friday is considered as the day of goddess Lakshmi in India. So, releasing movies on Friday came from the belief that producers would be blessed with good wealth.

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    Note that the opening day is not the same in all countries. In France, movies open on Wednesday.
    – jcaron
    Commented Mar 20, 2017 at 12:38
  • 2
    In Germany, it's Thursday, although some movies have worldwide synchronized releases. In the past, it also used to be that it took months until a movie was released in Germany, but nowadays it seems that dubbing is accelerated (or rather the American release delayed) so that the movie can be released in all major localized markets in the same week.
    – Jörg W Mittag
    Commented Mar 20, 2017 at 12:48
  • "The screening fee that producers have to pay to multiplex owners is higher for days other than Friday." Why? How much?
    – smci
    Commented Mar 20, 2017 at 13:10
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    @JörgWMittag, simultaneous release is a piracy mitigation exercise
    – Separatrix
    Commented Mar 20, 2017 at 13:44
  • The reality is also that these "set" days are often ignored for major releases via avant-premieres etc.
    – BCdotWEB
    Commented Mar 20, 2017 at 14:29

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