Hindi
Box office: ‘Welcome Back’ rakes in Rs 50.2 crore in opening weekend
MUMBAI: Welcome Back has clearly cashed in on its brand equity. However, it is not just the brand that has helped the film but its clean entertainer tag has made it generally acceptable. A zany comedy, it took an encouraging opening on Friday and, as expected, registered better figures on Saturday and Sunday on the strength of mouth publicity.
The film belied trade estimates of about Rs 12 crore Friday at best and went on to collect over Rs 14 crore. The weekend tally stands at Rs 50.2 crore, which is healthy though the unnaturally high cost of the film’s making will always be hard to recoup.
Phantom proves to be a dud at the box office. The film had decent figures to show only on its first Saturday it being a Raksha Bandhan holiday in parts of India. While collections remained static on the Sunday that followed, it started dropping drastically from Monday onwards and the Rs 33.2 crore weekend could not go beyond Rs 45.8 crore to show for the first week.
Baaneky Ki Crazy Baraat proves to be a costly farce as the film sinks badly at the box office not even managing to cross a one crore mark in its first week stopping short at just about Rs 90 lakh.
Kaun Kitney Paani Mein collects a poor Rs 30 lakh in its first week.
Manjhi The Mountain Man holds well in its second week. Released on a limited screen engagement, the film adds Rs 2.8 crore in its second week to take its two week total to Rs 12.25 crore.
All Is Well proves a total disaster managing to put together just about Rs 40 lakh in its second week to take its two week tally to Rs 14.3 crore.
Brothers comes to the end of its not so impressive run with figures of Rs 65 lakh in its third week taking its three week total to Rs 77.35 crore.
Drishyam collects another Rs 1.25 crore to take its five week total to Rs 81.2 crore.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan collects Rs 50 lakh in its seventh week to take its seven week total to Rs 317.85 crore.
Bahubali: The Beginning (Hindi-Dubbed) adds Rs 70 lakh in its eighth week taking its eight week tally to Rs 109.3 crore.
Hindi
Jio Studios unveils AI-powered Krishna teaser at NAB Show 2026
Global first look of Krishna uses Galleri5 AI pipeline on Azure, Historyverse slate as Jio’s Dhurandhar crosses Rs 3,000cr worldwide.
MUMBAI: Krishna has just dropped a divine teaser and this time the gods are powered by silicon, not just scripture. Jio Studios and Collective Studios’ Historyverse stole the spotlight at the NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas with the world’s first teaser for their upcoming theatrical feature Krishna, directed by Manu Anand. The big reveal happened during Microsoft’s keynote “Powering Intelligent Media, From AI Experimentation to Real-World Impact,” where the film’s AI-native production pipeline took centre stage alongside Collective Artists Network’s in-house platform, Galleri5.
At the heart of this mythological spectacle lies a fresh cinematic workflow built by Galleri5 on Microsoft Azure’s advanced AI and cloud infrastructure. Forget bolting AI onto traditional VFX or animation, this is an end-to-end, production-grade system woven into every layer: world-building, character creation, shot design and final output. Yet the storytelling remains firmly director-led, emphasising emotional depth, stillness, music and performance rather than pure spectacle. The result? Large-format theatrical cinema rooted in Indian history and culture, but conceived in ways that were simply not possible before.
Collective Artists Network runs Galleri5 natively on Azure, leveraging Microsoft Foundry and cutting-edge AI tools to handle film, episodic and advertising workflows in a secure enterprise environment. Microsoft highlighted Collective as a “Frontier” organisation successfully moving AI from pilot projects to real production-scale deployment in cinema. The technology is also on display at Microsoft’s NAB booth in the West Hall (Booth W1731).
Jio Studios (Media & Content Business, Reliance Industries), president Jyoti Deshpande said the project advances the studio’s mission to take Indian stories global with scale, ambition and authenticity, “With Krishna, we are embracing cutting-edge AI-led filmmaking while democratising these tools to make them more accessible, intuitive and cost-effective for storytellers everywhere.”
Collective Artists Network founder & group CEO Vijay Subramaniam added, “We’re using technology developed in India to carry our culture and history to audiences worldwide at a scale never seen before.”
Microsoft, vice president for telco media & entertainment, gaming Silvia Candiani noted that the media industry has reached an inflection point, “AI is no longer about experimentation but delivering real impact at production scale… By building AI-native creative systems on Microsoft Azure, Collective exemplifies how storytellers can unlock new formats, move faster and realise a true return on intelligence while keeping human creativity at the centre.”
Krishna forms part of Historyverse, Collective Studios’ ambitious slate of history and culture-driven IPs. The slate draws from iconic figures and traditions that shaped the Indian subcontinent, including stories inspired by Kali, Karna and Durga. It builds on the already-released Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh series, showing how ancient narratives can be reimagined for modern screens.
Jio Studios, India’s leading content studio and the media and content arm of Reliance Industries, continues its blockbuster run. The studio’s Dhurandhar franchise led by Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge has become the first Indian film series to cross Rs 3,000 crore worldwide. It also delivered three consecutive years of India’s highest-grossing Hindi films: Stree 2 (2024), Dhurandhar (2025) and Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026). In just eight years, Jio Studios has assembled a library of over 160 films and series, with more than 60 titles winning over 500 awards. Other notable successes include Laapataa Ladies (India’s official Oscar entry 2025), Stree, Article 370, Shaitaan and Mrs.
The NAB unveiling marks another step in Jio Studios and Collective’s push to blend Indian storytelling talent with frontier technology proving that the future of cinema may well be both ancient in spirit and thoroughly modern in execution. For audiences who love epic tales with a fresh twist, Krishna promises to deliver divine drama, this time with a little help from the cloud.
