70 mm comes closer to small screen

A year ago one could not have imagined downloading a legal copy of a new Bollywood film within three months of the movie’s theatrical release. But filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra attempts to do just that with his recent release, 3 Idiots starring Aamir Khan.

“The movie will be available for free downloading on online portal YouTube in eight to 12 weeks,” said Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

Bollywood is fast narrowing the gap between a movie releasing on the 70 mm screen and its appearance on other platforms. “The advent of satellite channels led to mainstream channels premiering blockbuster movies after a year of their theatrical release. But from 2007 onwards the window reduced by six months and now you see movies on channels within three months or even lesser in some cases after their theatrical debut,” says N P Singh, chief operating officer, Multi Screen Media, the company that owns Sony Entertainment Channel.

It was 2007’s Jab We Met, starring Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor that signalled a syndicate model under which a movie was sold to several channels and each channel paid depending on whether it had the first or second telecast rights. This was contrary to the existing model wherein producers sold movies exclusively to one channel for a period of five years for anything between Rs 2 crore and Rs 6 crore depending on the box-office success of the film.

“Channels are once again buying exclusive rights because the syndicate model doesn’t make economic sense for them. Producers have realised that telecast rights to multiple channels reduces the library value of a film and are now going back to the old model,” adds Singh. The rates however have now shot up to Rs 8 to 10 crore per movie for five years.

New Media platforms like direct-to-home (DTH) have jumped onto the bandwagon. Each DTH player be it Dish TV, Tata Sky, Big TV DTH or Airtel DTH are battling for the DTH rights of films. For instance, the Shahid Kapoor-Priyanka Chopra starrer Kaminey was launched across multiple DTH platforms simultaneously after five weeks of its theatrical release.

“Kaminey was illegally downloaded almost 360,000 times in India within four weeks of its release. So, it makes sense for producers to tap new media to make the movie available to viewers. Why should producers block a stream of revenue that piracy is eating into? Therefore, we decided to release Kaminey in the fifth week on DTH platforms,” said Amrita Pandey, vice-president, International distribution and syndication, UTV Motion Pictures. Industry estimates the download of Kaminey from DTH to be around 80,000 in the first four weeks of its DTH launch.

The home video market, revolutionised by Moser Baer’s entry in 2007, forced existing labels to reduce prices. Traditional home video labels like Shemaroo Entertainment and Ultra now release movies for not more than Rs 399 per DVD versus nearly Rs 600 they charged a decade ago.

Movies on DVD are now available within four to six weeks of their theatrical release. “The objective of the company was to grow the home video market by creating an interest in home viewing for which it reduced the price,” says Harish Dayani, chief executive officer, Moser Baer Entertainment.

New movie DVDs like Blue and Kaminey are available for less than Rs 200.