BOLLYWOOD BIGGIES LOSING THE PLOT

Revenuefromtheatresinthe7monthsthisyearfall19% to~823crorecomparedtothecorrespondingperiodlastyear

Bollywood’s dream merchants are losing their magic touch. In the first seven months of this year, domestic net box office collections (NBOC) of the top 10 Bollywood movies in terms of revenues from theatres— excluding the dubbed version of Baahubali 2 — fell by over 19 per cent from ~1,022 crore in 2016 to ~823 crore in 2017.

In 2016, producers forked out ~525 crore to make the top 10 movies but made up nearly double the amount from domestic NBOC. Of course, much of it was owing to the success of Salman Khan’s Sultan. In 2017, the total spent on the top 10 films was ~714 crore but the return shrunk, with no blockbusters.

The only high point was the unprecedented success of Baahubali 2 that rustled up a new record of ~510 crore in the domestic NBOC — constituting for 40 per cent of the total collections for Hindi films in this period. If the movie is considered in the top 10 earners, although it was a Telugu film produced in Hyderabad and not a Bollywood production, the NBOC growth would go up by 26 per cent.

The failure of big-budget Bollywood movies show that mega stars such as Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Hritik Roshan, Ranbir Kapoor and leading ladies such as Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma are struggling to impress the audience. DeepikaPadukone, AamirKhan, PriyankaChopra and Ranveer Singh, of course, have not opened their account this year. The country’s most bankable star, Salman, co-produced Tubelight after delivering a series of hits in the past few years. Experts say the principal distributors paid a staggering ~131 crore to acquire pan-India (except central India) distribution rights for the film. But with a poor show (NBOC of ~114 crore), distributors managed to make up just ~49 crore as their share of the collections (about 50 per cent of box office collections goes to the exhibitor). The Khans compensated the distributors to the tune of ~32.50 crore, but they still lost a substantial ~50 crore.

The story was similar for the other Khan. Both of Shah Rukh’s movies in 2017 — Raees and Jab

Harry Met Sejal — faced a drubbing. Jab Harry Met Sejal, produced by the star through Red Chillies, is still struggling in the second week of its release, with domestic NBOC of only ~64 crore. The movie was sold to the lead distributor for ~80 crore, who in turn pre-sold it territories to sub-distributors. But with the share of the distributors of box office collection at only ~30 cr ore, they face the spectre of heavy losses. And Raees — which bombed in the domestic box office managing to barely collect back the ~130 crore spent for making the film— was saved because Shah Rukh still retains his magic in the overseas markets, where it made ~50 crore. He also sold the movie’s satellite and digital rights for a staggering ~54 crore.

Perhaps the only consistent superstar has been Akshay Kumar. His Jolly LLB made a net income of ~8 crore, while Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, made with a budget of ~24 crore, has raked in more than five times, with collections of ~105 crore.

SunielWadhwa, independent distributor and box office analyst, says that while the size of the domestic box office is shrinking, budgets of big movies are going through the roof (most hit ~100 crore), making it that much more difficult to break even. The soaring price of tickets, with the implementation of the goods and services tax, also discouraged movie goers. Ofcourse, tent-polemovies did not live up to the expectations. The situation worsened when two big movies were released in the same week (like Raees and Kaabil), adversely impacting the box office of both.

Yet, in this mayhem, there were some surprises that had nothing to do with star power. They were movies with good content and performance and were backed by reasonably-controlled budget. Irrfan Khan’s Hindi Medium made with a budget of ~23 crore topped the list by earning ~21 crore for its makers and distributers, the highest for a movie in 2017 till now. It was followed by Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt’s

Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya at the second spot.