This is supposed to be a busy time of year for Bollywood. School exams are over and Hollywood's summer blockbusters are typically still a couple of months away, making it the perfect time to release India's big spring flicks.

Instead, the coronavirus pandemic has brought the world's most prolific film industry to a halt. Movie theaters have shut their doors, production companies have called off shoots, and film studios have delayed releases — including the debuts of at least two major films that were expected to carry the season. The highly anticipated action film "Sooryavanshi" and the cricket biopic "83," the latter of which tells the story of India's 1983 World Cup victory, were both pushed back for "health and safety" reasons. The producers did not say when they would be released.

"The films were huge," said Shubhra Gupta, film critic for the Indian Express newspaper. "There was a huge deal of anticipation from the audiences. It's a big loss."

The pandemic has likely cost India's film industry more than $330 million in lost box office revenue and canceled production shoots, according to Komal Nahta, a film trade analyst and television host of "ETC Bollywood Business."

A 'cascading effect' on films

More than 1,800 movies were produced in India in 2018, according to Statista, a research and data website. That was more than any other country's film industry that year.

While Hindi-language Bollywood films dominate the industry, there are other significant players, including the regional hub Tollywood (Telugu language), along with films made in Marathi, Bhojpuri and Bengali.

All told, box office revenue in India was estimated to have reached $1.4 billion in 2019, a nearly 12% increase over the year before, according to an annual report published by the consulting firm Ormax Media. Most of that came from Indian films; Hollywood represented just 15% of that amount.

Film producers in India don't just want to please their Indian fans, either. Some of the biggest names in Bollywood, including Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone, help the industry rake in revenue from audiences around the world.

Last year, for example, the action thriller "War" took in $13.7 million overseas, about a quarter of its total box office haul.