Brands
Saiyaara soars as July box office scripts 2025’s biggest blockbuster month
MUMBAI: The Indian film industry found its monsoon magic in July and the box office is dancing in the rain. After a lukewarm June, July 2025 stormed ahead to become the year’s strongest month yet at the Indian box office, powered by two juggernauts: Hindi romance-drama Saiyaara and the animated epic Mahavatar Narsimha. Together, the duo accounted for more than 45 per cent of the month’s total collections, proving that love stories and mythological action still bring audiences to the theatres in droves.
Leading the charge, Saiyaara grossed a staggering Rs 392 crore, making it the second-highest earner of the year so far, behind only Chhaava. Close on its heels, Mahavatar Narsimha roared to Rs 259 crore, with the Hindi version alone contributing 75 per cent of the take. Add in Hollywood’s heavyweights Jurassic World Rebirth and Superman & The Fantastic Four: The First Steps and the July box office became a truly global playground.
The cumulative box office tally for 2025 releases has already climbed 22 per cent higher than the same period last year, keeping the industry firmly on track to cross the Rs 12,000 crore mark by year-end. That would put 2025 in contention to dethrone the all-time record set in 2023 at Rs 12,226 crore. Language-wise, Hindi continues to dominate with five titles in the year’s Top 10, while Hollywood has clawed up to a 12 per cent share of the pie, its best since 2022. Kannada too got its moment with horror-comedy Su From So, lifting its share from under 1 per cent in June to more than 2 per cent in July, while Malayalam slipped from 10 per cent to 8 per cent.
If July is any indication, 2025 could well end up rewriting the box office record books with Bollywood, Hollywood, and even regional cinema scripting their own plot twists along the way.
Brands
Aoneha Tagore gets into entrepreneurship with Collabor8 launch
Former Spotify India editorial head sets up firm focused on long-term brand and fandom building
MUMBAI: Aoneha Tagore is stepping out of streaming and into entrepreneurship, launching artist management and brand advisory firm Collabor8 with a clear pitch: manage musicians for careers, not just campaigns.
The former head of editorial at Spotify India has positioned the venture as a response to an industry still wired to short-term release cycles even as artists double up as cultural voices and community builders. Founded in late 2025, Collabor8 is built around longer-horizon planning, narrative shaping and career development.
Its offering spans music strategy, public relations, social media, content direction, brand partnerships, monetisation and positioning. The bundle sits under what the firm calls “Music Surround Services”, designed to align creative output with bigger career goals and market positioning.
Tagore brings more than two decades of experience across radio, television and digital. Her track record runs through WorldSpace Satellite Radio, Fever FM, Oye FM, Radio City, 9X Network, MTV and VH1, alongside work on the launch of MTV Beats. Most recently, she oversaw playlist strategy and artist programming at Spotify India during a period of rapid growth for the platform.
At Collabor8, artist management is framed as brand stewardship. The firm says it follows a people-first, insight-led model that privileges narrative clarity, fandom development and durable growth over momentary spikes in visibility. It works with emerging, scaling and established artists, tailoring playbooks to individual ambitions.
The agency has already signed a mix of upcoming and established acts and plans to keep its gaze on career planning beyond conventional release calendars.
Explaining the move, Tagore said:
“Artists today are not just releasing music, they’re shaping culture, building communities and initiating conversations. Yet much of the ecosystem still manages them for the next release or moment. Collabor8 was created to help artists articulate their vision, how they want to be seen, heard and remembered but most importantly, build meaningful narratives around their brand identity. Our focus is on building scale, longevity and fandom for music artists, not fleeting visibility.”
As the artist economy matures, Collabor8 is pitching itself as a partner for strategic, sustainable and authentic careers. The wager is simple: in a crowded market, the artists who last will be those built like brands. Collabor8 wants to be in the engine room when that happens.
