Bollywood waits for a bang bang festive season

AFTER a rather tepid first half, the Mumbai film industry is hoping for some bumper hits in the coming festive season. The fireworks have already started with Salman Khanstarrer Kick, which released on Eid and raked in big money. Around R1,000 crore is expected in just box office collections this festive season, with big-budget films up for release, including Bang Bang, Action Jackson, Bombay Velvet, Welcome, PK and Happy New Year.

The collections would be at least 15-20% up over last year, say trade analysts. This is partly due to the increase in number of screens and multiplexes, and partly due to rate of admission (price of ticket), which goes up as per the demand and supply.

The first half of 2014 was fairly disappointing, and few films made it to the R100crore club — exceptions being Alia Bhatt-starrer Two States, Salman Khan’s Jai Ho and Kick, and Holiday.

Though Yusuf Shaikh, head (distribution and IPR), Percept Pictures, admits the year began on a dull note, he adds, “The (festive) season kicked off with the release of Salman Khan’s Kick, which balanced out everything and turned out to be a massive hit.”

The second half of the year awaits some of the biggest releases in the history of Indian cinema. Hrithik Roshan’s Bang Bang releases on Dussehra, Shah Rukh’s Happy New Year on Diwali, Ajay Devgn’s Action Jackson post-Diwali, Ranbir Kapoor’s Bombay Velvet on November 28 and Aamir Khan’s PK around Christmas.

“Expectations from these movies are enor mous. Happy New Year should become the biggest-ever Indian cinema grosser. In India, the film will be shown on 6,000 screens and on anoth- er 500 inter nationally. Shah Rukh Khan is spending R50 crore in promotions alone,” said Shaikh.

Trade analyst Komal Nahta said he expects most of these big films, especially Happy New Year and PK, to cross R200 crore in collections. “The R100- crore benchmark is passé now. These days films cross R200- 300 crore in collections because of the increase in admission price (ticket) and expansion in number of screens, especially in tier 2 and 3 towns. Ticket prices have been increasing almost 10-15% every year. This time around, we have a lot of films with A-bracket stars and the collections should be much more than the previous year.”

One of last year’s top grossers was Chennai Express, which released during Eid and did R204 crore in box office collections. Krissh 3 released around Diwali and Dhoom 3 at Christmas both managed to collect R500 crore each at the box office.

Rakesh Upadhyay, creative producer of film Khiladi 786, said more than 200 screens are being added in the Mumbai circuit alone and ticket prices are soaring for films with big stars. “Bang Bang should clock at least R35 crore on the opening day, while PK should generate at least R45 crore. These films could supersede R200 crore in their run. Happy New Year is expected to break all records; in its entire run, it could clock well over R300 crore in collections. This will be a good year for Bollywood. Some big stars are doing the promotions. Consumer sentiment is good,” he said.

Viacom 18 Motion Pictures has also released its film Mary Kom in the backdrop of the Ganesh festival and released in 1,500-1,800 screens worldwide. But Viacom18 says the timing is not by design. “We have always gone against the norm,” said Ajit Andhare, COO, Viacom18 Motion Pictures, “For instance, we released Oh My God in the shradh period when there are hardly any releases as it is considered inauspicious. We released Queen in March during exams and that was something we had been warned against. There were hardly any films releasing during that time, but these films still went on to do extremely well. While it is true that the festive season does bring in box office collections, if you have a good product at hand, you can plan its release anytime.”

Andhare also feels that the Diwali and post-Diwali period could be a bit of overkill, as there are too many big films and big stars pitted against each other.