Bollywood’s facelift

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: video, internet downloads and so forth, are dependent on the box office success of a film. Some producers prefer to pre-sell these rights, but most prefer to await box-office results and then clock revenues from other streams.” It does matter if a film doesn’t do well at the box-office, says P S Saminathan, CMD, Pyramid Saimira Group, “but for huge players like Pyramid Saimira, an individual film failure has little less impact. We distribute many films, but as an industry norm, 70% of films will fail.”

But Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO, UTV Motion Pictures, says it’s been a landmark year for UMP. “We have met success with six movies back to back.”

Even a film like the overhyped Kismet Konnection that didn’t get critical acclaim collected Rs 30 crore net at the box office. Jodha Akbar did business worth Rs 65 crore and even a small budget film like Aamir had a long run at the multiplex.

As distributor Sandeep Bhargava, head of Indian Films, (its Indian arm is Studio 18) has little to complain. “The year has been pretty good. We pre-sold Bhootnath and made money on that. Singh is Kinng has been a rocking hit with the gross figures touching Rs 150 crore,” he says. Singh is Kingg, starring hit couple Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif, was critically trashed but thanks to the hype and 1,800 prints being released, it got a grand opening.

Problem of plenty

For PVR Cinemas too, it has been a great year as exhibitor, producer and distributor. But box-office revenues have caused some confusion, admits Saksena: “It’s not entirely correct to say that films have not worked this year. The more serious problem is of the sustaining a film, with sometimes five-seven films releasing in a week.”

A film has to take an opening for any success and this year, says Saksena, “word of mouth films have worked but have not got as much success as one would have liked simply because there is not enough time for a film to register an impact on the cinemas. Good box-office collections matter because the costs are rising but there is not enough playtime available for any film.”

Studio model