Animated movies no more a 'kids play'

A cat in a hat and boots gave a tough fight at the box office. Puss in Boots, a spin-off of the Shrek franchise, releases last Friday in 300 screens, highlighting the growing popularity of animated movies and craze for 3D movies in the country.

Only last month, The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn got splashed across 380 screens in 2D and 3D formats. At present, trade analysts say, the animated movie market has more than doubled in the last one year. The genre now accounts around Rs 100 crore of the country’s total Hollywood market size that translates to around Rs 800 crore.

 

Distributors are particularly impressed. Viacom 18 Motion Pictures says it has, in the last year particularly, seen an apparent rise in the popularity of these movies. “Hollywood film’s biggest draw has always been its visuals, action-packed sequences and the overall adrenaline rush,” points out Vikram Malhotra, COO, Viacom 18 Motion Pictures that is distributing Paramount Pictures in India.

“These days, though, we are seeing a major shift in family-oriented animated features.” In addition, the rise of 3D screens, coupled with animation, has also worked as magic for these films.

“For Tintin, four-fifth of the revenue has come from 3D screens,” points out Kercy Daruwala, managing director of Sony Pictures India. The Steven Speilberg film, which was released in 220 3D screens, is expected to collect Rs 25 crore by this weekend.

“The combination of the 3D factor and fantastic word of mouth meant that it became a box office success,” he adds.

According to multiplex officials, till 2009- 2010, these movies were released with not more than 75 prints even if it included popular franchisees like Toy Story. This year, seven films were released over 100-150 screens. The list leads with Tintin (380 screens) and Fox Star Studio’s Rio (217 screens), followed by Dreamwork Animations and Paramount Pictures’ Kungfu Panda 2 (146 screens).

The perception has changed, according to Big Cinemas. “Usually animated movie in India were seen as childish and aimed solely at children — unlike in the West,” notes its COO (west and south) Ashish Saksena “Of late, animated movies have become far more sophisticated.”

Saksena points out the the game changer was Shrek and Ice Age 3, which rewrote the rules with a different marketing strategy by targeting the family audiences and youth.

The growing importance of the Indian film market is reflected in the fact that a number of Hollywood studios are queuing up and finding innovative ways to woo the movie buff. Even for movies of this genre, studios are going all out to promote their movies with a “360-degree approach”.

Fox Star Studios, which released Rio earlier this year, dubbed its sound track in Hindi with Shaan and Sunidhi Chauhan doing the lead vocals. “The idea is to localise content so that its appeals to wider audience,” notes Vivek Krishnani, head (distribution), Marketing and Syndication, Fox Star Studios.

For instance, Cars 2, sequel to the popular animated Disney movie Cars that was released in June, has partnered with Pepsodent, Britannia, Funskool, Mattel, Reebok, Horlicks, Godrej Yummiez, Dabur Real juices and Dell computers.