Despite big banners, Bollywood loosing its charm

Despite the top studios making a beeline to enter Bollywood and the Indian Film industry’s growing prowess across markets, the first four months have been dismal at the box office. With 19 films released in 2008, from January to April, the box office has seen just two hits Race and Jodha Akbar. Besides, there was a drop in the number of releases during the 4 months. In 2006 the number of releases for the same period was 28, 27 in 2007 while 2008 has seen only 19 releases so far.

The saving grace has been Race and Jodhaa Akbar, with collections of Rs 62 crore and Rs 61 crore respectively. The list of big banners which flopped was Ajay Devgan’s Halla Bol which clocked in Rs 15.9 crore, followed by Black & White, which marked Subhash Ghai’s come back, which managed just Rs 5.8 crore. The much publicised Pakistani film Khuda Ke Liye, despite a wide release across multiplexes could rake in only Rs 1.2 crore.

Pritish Nandy, CEO, Pritish Nandy Communications, puts it best when he says, “Number of films released going down was something that was bound to happen. The in-built inflation omnipresent in the film industry has been a major factor. With actors prices having zoomed up, the economics of movie making has been destroyed. Moreover, date availability being an issue, number of releases will see a decline.”

Mr Nandy added that Hollywood went through the same phase earlier with actors dictating the industry, pushing studios to step in and ensure that the script was the selling point and not the actor. He added that this year the number of films in toto will also see a decline from the average 250 films a year to about 200-220.
While the Hindi film industry might have produced many actors, it is still the top stars who rule the roost at the box office. Says Namrata Shanbhogue, media and entertainment expert with Enam Fin Consultants, “The stars of Shahrukh, Akshay, Aamir, Salman are still major drivers of box office revenues. And non availability of dates from these stars could automatically mean delayed releases.”

With actor availability now becoming scarce, producers are looking at strategic ways of controlling talent costs. For instance, long-term deals with actors and directors is in vogue. UTV, for instance, has reportedly tied up with Hrithik Roshan to do a certain number of movies for a fixed sum. UTV also has a tie-up with directors like Madhur Bhandarkar and Ashutosh Gowariker. Similarly, Studio 18 has tied up with Katrina Kaif for two movies. However, trade analysts state that this trend is short lived, and with the demand-supply mismatch, actors are shying away from long term contracts, and are cashing in on the bull run.