The workers? strike, holding up shooting of 40-odd films, may be the last straw, but it? s anyway been a year of surprises in Bollywood. Big-ticket films (Tashan, Bhootnath) that were slated to do well didn?t, instead small-budget, refreshingly different films (Aamir, Jaane Tu? Ya Jaane Na, Jannat, Rock On!!) stole the show and with the audience showing the way, multiplexes laid down the red carpet for new cinema, be it from the world, Hollywood or Bollywood.
Really, Anurag Kashyap must be rueing the fact that he made Paanch seven years too early. Paanch, a story about five rock stars in the making and their pursuit of success at all costs, got caught at the censors in 2001 and has never been commercially released. But in 2008, you have Rock On!!, a film on a sub-culture like alternative rock music, meeting with box-office success too; you have an Ingmar Bergman retrospective at multiplexes and the response is overwhelming; and for the next Bond film, Sony Pictures? Quantum of Solace, an unprecedented 650 prints of which are going to be released on November 7.
?2008 has finally confirmed what production houses like ours have been saying for years. That Bollywood desperately needs a facelift,? says Pritish Nandy of PNC. ?You cannot be the world?s biggest movie industry and proudly produce so much of trash. Over the past few years, things have been changing. Good movies are coming out, finding screens, finding supp-ortive critics, finding applauding audiences. This is the best thing that could have happ-ened to the industry,? he adds.
But does good content necessarily translate into good box-office? Depends on who you put the question to. Reliance Entertainment?s chief marketing officer Saurabh Varma is pretty pleased with Rock On!!?s theatrical numbers. ?The film has collected Rs 35 crore gross (and still going strong) from just the India theatricals itself,? he points out.
If the first half of the year wasn?t very strong for Bollywood?some of the films which fared well at the box-office include Jodhaa Akbar, Taare Zameen Par, Race, Jaane Tu??all the players are looking to the festival releases like UTV?s Fashion, Ashtavinayak?s Golmaal Returns, Dharma Productions? Dostana, Mukta Arts? Yuvvraaj, Yash Raj Films? Rab Ne Bana
Di Jodi and Allu Arvind?s Ghajini, starring Aamir Khan.
So, how important is the box-office success for the fate of a film? Explains PVR Cinemas CEO Ashish Saksena: ?All revenue sources, satellite rights, TV, home 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
So, is the studio model working in India? ?We are working on a studio model,? says Bhargava, ?and we have been fairly successful.? Players like Reliance Entertainment?s Big Pictures are working with all the prime talent, penetrating not just Hindi cinema but other languages like Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil ,Telugu, Kannada,Malayalam etc. ?With one window to service theatrical (India and overseas), music, home video, digital, radio, social networking, video on demand etc, the offer becomes quiet lucrative for filmmakers,? points out Varma.
Says PVR?s Saksena: ?Everyone is working towards a studio model though nobody is there yet. But I would rephrase that by saying that though corporatisation was a much maligned word till about two years ago, thanks to set-ups like UTV, Reliance, Studio 18 and PVR Pictures, corporatisation is here to stay and has contributed favourably towards the success of Indian films worldwide.? Likewise, the studio model too will reap rich dividends, say analysts, if you pitch it right. Saminathan disagrees: ?I do not think the studio model is working, the primary reason being that the corporates are acting more as traders rather than as proper platform creators. Only Pyramid Saimira and to a little extent, Reliance are trying to follow the studio model of creating an integrated content development and exploitation platform.?
Growth pangs
Amidst a global financial crisis and fears of a recession, ask whether the industry?s growth is on track and whether corporate interest will continue and Reliance?s Varma responds: ?Any player who has a proper plan in place can survive in the industry. If the Indian economy is going through a rough patch, that is for businesses all over.?
Pyramid?s Saminathan says the industry is going through a consolidation phase and in the next 2?3 years, ?there may by a complete annihilation of smaller players in this segment.? If the economy keeps declining as it currently is, points out Nandy, the entertainment industry will go through a rough patch, because ?everything is always linked?. He adds, ?the good news is that the entertainment business is usually recession proof in terms of consumption. People will go to the movies, buy DVDs, down-load music even though most other things look grim. But it could be tough to raise money to make movies or grow in scale. That is inevitable.?
The biggest challenge going forward is not overpriced talent, though that?s a huge cause for concern. ?We must remember that unless producers, distributors and exhibitors are all happy, a film cannot be called a hit,? points out Saksena. ?Currently, we are faced with a scenario that films are overpriced but their viability is suspect,? he points out.
As Nandy puts it: ?Of course, the old formulaic nonsense continues (and it will for some more time), but more and more people are converting to the new cinema and that?s a great thing.? This, he says, ?will eventually open up our cinema, create new audiences, and integrate us with the rest of the movie-watching world. You can keep aside the box office for a while and afford to experiment with new ideas, new actors, new cinema. It will pay back in the long run.?
Here?s to new cinema.
