The Indonesian movie ‘Sijjin‘ has created new business records worldwide and has surprised trade analysts by doing exceptional business in Pakistan. Sijjin is a Turkish franchise consisting of six films in the series that did great business worldwide. An Indonesian film company acquired the rights to the franchise and produced it in the Indonesian language, which turned out to be a huge success. The movie was released on November 11, 2023. The first film of this franchise in Turkey was released in 2014, while the last installment of this movie series so far came out in 2019.
Sijjin is an Arabic term that is in Islamic belief either a prison, vehement torment, or straitened circumstances at the bottom of hell, below the earth, or, according to a different interpretation, a register for the damned or record of the wicked, The story of Sijjin portrays the impact of black magic, its devastating consequences.
The story of the film is related to an Indonesian Muslim family. Irma is in love with her cousin Galang but he is married to someone else and is also the father of a daughter who is blind. Irma enlists the help of an agent to get his wife out of the way to marry her cousin, who guarantees that Galang‘s wife will die in five nights. Due to Irma‘s mistake, the spell backfires, causing Irma‘s family members to die one by one.
Sijjin is now being regarded as one of the best horror films in the Eastern world. Its success at the box office is evident from the fact that it has earned over 50 million rupees in Pakistan alone.
It is interesting to note that despite the poor condition of the Pakistani box office, the film Sijjin was released experimentally. Instead of dubbing the film in Urdu or English, it was released in Indonesian language with English subtitles. Even the film’s distributors did not expect it to be so successful, but the business generated by the film made everyone happy.
There have been reports circulating on social media that attribute Sijjin‘s phenomenal success to a viral campaign that was apparently against the film, but it ended up benefiting the film. Furthermore, according to these reports, a large number of people who watched the film were under the influence of black magic or suffered from various psychological problems. The film was released in Pakistan on January 19th.
During the first week, Sijjin‘s film had a remarkable opening week, earning a record-breaking amount of PKR 14.5 million. In the second week, the film’s collections amounted to Rs 11 million, and in the third week, it collected Rs 9.5 million. The fourth week saw collections of Rs 6.7 million, and in the fifth week, Sijjin earned Rs 4.5 million. Altogether, the film made a total business of Rs 46.2 million in five weeks.
As of February 23rd, the movie has entered its sixth week and is still contending with new Hollywood releases. The movie’s total earnings have surpassed 50 million rupees by adding the weekend collections in the sixth week.
The unprecedented success of Sijjin has opened doors for Indonesian films to be screened in Pakistan. More Indonesian movies are also scheduled to be released in Pakistani cinemas in the upcoming weeks.