Flops In Bollywood Hit Distributors Big Time!

Film producers who are looking to seal record deals are facing a difficult problem: there are no takers for the high price these producers are charging. The rich distribution companies and corporate are hesitant about buying movies at a high price, where there is a high probability that they will flop. Even if a movie works, there is less chance of recovering the cost, given the high price.

Two costliest movies in Bollywood, Rakesh Roshan’s Kites at Rs.120 crores and Shree Ashtvinayak Cine Vision’s Blue pegged at Rs. 150 crores haven’t found ready buyers. The market may be big but not big enough to recover a cost of Rs.150 crores. Om Shanti Om sold at Rs. 73 crores and Singh is Kinng sold at Rs. 60 crores were lucky because the two films recovered their investment. UTV bought Kismat Konnection and Race jointly for Rs.90 crores. The news is that Reliance Big Entertainment has bought Karzzz for Rs. 40 crore(including home video and music rights) while Indian Film Studio 18 has also bought Golmaal for round about Rs.40 crore. Reliance had bought Rock On for Rs.20 crore which did exceedingly well while Eros International made a big mistake in purchasing Drona for Rs.45 crore.

The truth is that corporates have no logical analysis of cinema. They just go by instincts or simply speaking, star power. The producers are as usual demanding a high price from distribution companies because they feel that they can get it. With the flopping of two of the hyped movies Kidnap and Drona, the market sentiment has come down. The less expected movies like Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, A Wednesday, Rock On have been the real successful movies of 2008. Only two movies Singh is Kinng and Race has lived to the hype and delivered. Still Singh is Kinng was painful for the sub distributors because they could not recover the cost, because of the steep price paid to the principal distributor. Ultimately everyone in the value chain has to earn money from the risk they take.

V.S.ARUNRAJ, in his entertaining blog Bollywood Trends gives a low-down on the news, views, reviews, masala and trends of the biggest and the busiest film industry in the world-Bollywood