For years, sequels have been Bollywood's most dependable commercial cushion. Familiar titles guaranteed strong openings, franchises minimised risk, and nostalgia often compensated for creative fatigue.
But 2025 exposed the limits of that comfort zone. One sequel after another arrived with hype, scale, and inflated budgets, only to discover that audience patience had finally run out.
What made 2025 particularly brutal was not just the number of underperforming sequels but the pattern behind their failures. Several films posted headline-friendly numbers, yet bled money. Others collapsed outright, proving that brand recall cannot survive on autopilot.
Even the comparatively successful sequels revealed shrinking profit margins. As box office figures reported by Sacnilk consistently show, 2025 was the year the sequel bubble decisively burst.
When Scale Replaced Storytelling
No film embodied the excesses of 2025 more than War 2. Designed as a spectacle-first blockbuster, the film leaned heavily on its star power and the much-hyped Hrithik Roshan vs Jr NTR face-off. Everything about its positioning screamed 'event cinema'.
While War 2 went on to collect approximately Rs 365 crore worldwide, the numbers lost the sheen when placed against the film's reported Rs 400 crore budget. According to Sacnilk, the sequel failed to even cross the lifetime collections of War (2019), an alarming outcome for a film intended to expand the franchise.
Weak writing and poor word-of-mouth ensured that the initial curiosity evaporated quickly, turning what should have been a celebratory sequel into one of the year's most expensive miscalculations.
A similar contradiction defined Housefull 5, a multistarrer.
On paper, the comedy looked successful, earning Rs 364.35 crore worldwide. In reality, the film's Rs 250 crore budget made profitability elusive. The makers banked on everything except the script - Akshay Kumar's return to slapstick comedy, an expansive cruise-ship setting, a massive global release strategy, and even the novelty of two near-identical versions (5A and 5B).
Those strategies worked in pulling crowds, but they could not mask the creative vacuum at the film's core. Critics and audiences alike criticised its lazy writing, crude humour and regressive depiction of women. Despite decent footfalls, Housefull 5 became a case study in how bigger mounting can actively harm a franchise when content fails to evolve.
Audience Rejection
If War 2 and Housefull 5 demonstrated the dangers of scale without substance, other 2025 sequels revealed something more final: audience rejection.
Tiger Shroff's Baaghi 4 marked the franchise's lowest point. While Baaghi 3 managed respectable numbers even during the pandemic-hit year of 2020, the fourth installment collapsed to just Rs 77 crore worldwide, as per Sacnilk.
The repetitive action formula, once the series's biggest draw, was now its undoing. Even with a relatively controlled budget, the film failed to recover costs theatrically, confirming that the franchise had exhausted its appeal.
The fall was even more dramatic for Son of Sardaar 2. The original film was a superhit largely because of its modest economics. The sequel, released after a 13-year gap, arrived with a reported Rs 130 crore budget but collected only Rs 65.75 crore worldwide.
According to Sacnilk, the sequel failed on every front - content, recall and competitiveness - becoming one of 2025's biggest loss-makers. The verdict was unmistakable: franchises cannot survive on name recognition alone.
Adult comedy fared no better. Mastiii 4 barely crossed Rs 15 crore worldwide against a budget of around Rs 40 crore, closely mirroring the disastrous performance of the previous chapter Great Grand Masti. Once a popular genre, this brand of humour has clearly lost its theatrical audience, and 2025 confirmed that the franchise model offers no protection against cultural irrelevance.
Bigger Collections, Weaker Returns
Not every sequel in 2025 was rejected outright. Some managed to draw audiences, but still highlighted the growing problem of diminishing returns.
Jolly LLB 3 benefited from the novelty of bringing Akshay Kumar and Arshad Warsi together, earning Rs 170.8 crore worldwide. However, while the audience base remained intact, the economics did not.
The franchise's budget reportedly ballooned to Rs 120 crore, compared to just Rs 30 crore for the first film. As a result, what was once an extremely profitable series delivered only modest gains.
Raid 2 followed a similar trajectory. The sequel earned Rs 173 crore worldwide, comfortably surpassing the original's Rs 103 crore. Yet the comparison ends there. Raid was a superhit because it earned nearly three times its Rs 35 crore budget. Burdened by a Rs 120 crore budget, Raid 2 settled for a hit verdict.
With Sitaare Zameen Par, the tension between revenue and ROI was even clearer. The film earned Rs 167.3 crore and eventually crossed Rs 267 crore worldwide, securing a hit verdict.
However, the sequel's Rs 122 crore budget, a tenfold increase from the original, meant that it could not replicate the extraordinary profitability of its predecessor.
Small Wins In A Difficult Year
Amid widespread disappointment, a few sequels provided limited consolation. Kesari Chapter 2, also led by Akshay Kumar, wrapped its run at Rs 145 crore worldwide, delivering an average verdict. While it did not end Akshay Kumar's hunt for a clean hit, it offered stability after several box office setbacks and proved that audiences had not completely disengaged.
De De Pyaar De 2, starring Ajay Devgn, Rakul Preet Singh, and R Madhavan, also occupied an ambiguous space. With Rs 111.53 crore worldwide, the film managed decent numbers and some positive word-of-mouth around performances. However, compared to the first film's economics and the sequel's inflated Rs 135 crore budget, theatrical recovery remained just out of reach.
At the other end of the spectrum lay Dhadak 2, a social drama starring newer stars Siddhant Chaturvedi and Triptii Dimri. Despite strong critical appreciation for its theme of caste politics and performances, the film earned just Rs 31.5 crore worldwide, ending as a clear theatrical disappointment.
Collectively, these films mark a turning point for Bollywood's franchise obsession. Familiar titles still delivered openings, but sustaining momentum required genuine storytelling.
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