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| Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: The search for mass-market films | | Why don?t we have more films like 3 Idiots, which have worked across Hindi markets in India to become a money-grosser |
| Vanita Kohli-Khandekar / New Delhi Feb 02, 2010, 00:06 IST |
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Why don’t we have more films like 3 Idiots? I’m not saying this because it is a nice film, but because it is a film that worked across Hindi markets in India to become a money-grosser. In recent years, Ghajini (2008) and Om Shanti Om (2007) are among the handful of films that have cut across audience clusters to become hits.
The more films can do that, the more money the industry can make, a la Hollywood. The Hindi film industry’s ability to do that has been suspect. For two years now, the industry has grown at a slower rate than before and the proportion of failed films has increased. On the other hand, the South Indian industry has had a better hit rate, largely because it has a larger proportion of films that analysts call family entertainers or mass films.
The reason there aren’t more Hindi films that span large audience clusters, it seems, is that multiplexes have skewed the whole creative process. The audience who pays Rs 150 a ticket brings in 55-60 per cent of box-office revenues. The assumption is that this audience prefers niche films such as Wake Up Sid or Bheja Fry. So, the proportion of niche films to the total (120-odd) Hindi films in a year has jumped up. This audience does not want a Veer or a Vivah.
Yet Vivah was one of the biggest hits in 2006, grossing over Rs 70 crore at the domestic box office. The only difference is that it worked better in non-metro India. Millions of people saw Vivah in multiplexes in small town India. So, it seems foolish to suggest that people only want to watch edgy films in multiplexes.
That brings me back to the question, why aren’t there more films for the masses, wherever they may be. Remember, this is not about good or bad films. This is about a business which has forgotten that it is catering to a madly heterogeneous market. There are scores of different audience segments in India — you could cut it across demographic or psychographic lines or any other way you choose.
My favourite example is Bhojpuri cinema. Roughly half the Hindi audience is actually people who speak Bhojpuri. The moment pan-Hindi films stopped getting made, they turned to cheap Bhojpuri films. They would happily see a 3 Idiots or a Vivah, if more of these were made.
Analysts argue that the creative process in most film companies is becoming the monopoly of people whose sensibilities are Mumbai-ised. And since this is a more evolved audience, there is a slightly sneery attitude to popular films. So, one solution is ensuring that there is enough non-Mumbai talent in the creative part of the business.
This doesn’t make sense. Mumbai, the capital of the entertainment industry in India, is a migrants’ city. Most of the big stars, writers, technicians et al are all from other parts of India — usually small Northern towns and Delhi.
And if they are so Mumbai-ised, how could the same people manage to create popular content that works across audience clusters on TV, a media that is heavily dependent on getting ratings and, therefore, ad revenues? They probably do it because the business demands it. In cinema, rising ticket prices brought in value growth for a few years even as ticket sales kept dropping. So, there was no need to worry about all the audiences in India. Maybe it is time to do so now.
India is a film-crazy market with low purchasing power and highly developed notions of value for money. Keep ticket prices where they are and the chances are that a lot of people who would happily pay Rs 30 or Rs 50 for a film ticket are left with no option but to watch a pirated version of the film.
Manmohan Shetty, the head of Walkwater Media and a veteran of the film business, reckons the solution is a chain of theatres with 700-800 seat capacity each with tickets priced at Rs 30-50. It means doing to movie-watching what Deccan Airways did to flying or Ginger is trying to do to hotels. If it means more films like 3 Idiots, it would bring growth and profitability back to the film business.
Vanitakohli@hotmail.com
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