Problem of plenty could dog Kollywood in new year too: G Dhananjayan

Once again over 200 films were released and only some 20 made money for producers. This is a meagre 10 per cent success rate. Close to 20 films managed to recover their cost. Producers of the remaining 160 films lost money either partially or entirely. Not many initiatives were taken to improve the success ratio by the  industry. 

The industry is facing key challenges on many fronts. While over 200 films released in Tamil, the Hindi film industry — India’s largest — released only 118 films while the Telugu film industry, which is bigger than Tamil, has released only 103 films this year. Clearly, there is a problem of plenty for audiences and hence, the high failure rate. There are no audiences for so many films. 

With limited buying of satellite, music, video and overseas rights, Tamil cinema is dependent largely on theatrical revenues. No longer can one mitigate the risk of investment by selling the other rights and earning around 50 per cent of cost. Today, revenue through other rights is a reality only when the film is successful theatrically. If the film fails at box office, there are no takers for any of the other rights including satellite, digital, dubbing and remake rights. Hence, Tamil cinema urgently needs alternate revenue sources to safeguard its investments. Digital online companies like Amazon, Hero Talkies, TentKotta have opened up but there is a long way to go before they match up the revenues the films used to earn until now through other rights.  

Tamil Nadu has nearly 1,060 screens, which is just 1.5 screens per lakh population. Well developed nations have around 10 screens per lakh. There is a clear need to increase the number of screens in the state to at least 2,000 in the short -term and 5,000 in the long run for the industry to flourish. China has focused on building infrastructure and hence has grown from 4,753 screens in 2006 to 40,917 screens in 2016, a growth of over 8 times in 10 years. The newly formed Andhra Pradesh government is pushing for the growth of theatres and should reach 3,000 screens by 2020. Unless such a focus and thrust is given by the Tamil Nadu government, the industry’s growth will be stagnant. 

Reams of articles have been written about the rampant piracy in Tamil cinema, which has now advanced to streaming new films through Facebook on release day itself (recent example: Kathithi Sandai ). The industry is struggling to gain the attention of the government towards this issue. 

Legendary producer and director Yash Chopra once said ‘Films don’t fail, but their budgets fail them commercially.’ How true! Most of the Tamil films that failed were grossly wrong on their budgets. Artistes and technicians continue to take disproportionate share of a (big) film’s budget as remunerations (over 50 per cent) and none shares the  risks of producers. 

Despite increasing failures, they continue increasing their remuneration unmindful of the reality or believing in fake box office numbers reported in the social media. There is an immediate need to rationalize the film’s budgets. 

Tamil Nadu is the only state in the country operating with the ticket prices fixed in 2007! Though the cost of essential goods and services have trebled during this period, the film industry is at the mercy of the Government to increase the ticket prices to absorb the increase in other costs. Also, with entertainment tax (for ‘U/A’ and ‘A’ rated films) and service tax, the film industry is facing revenue losses on multiple grounds.  

Demonetisation and digital economy have hit the industry hard. It has to embrace the changes and find new ways of operating to survive. One sincerely hopes that Tamil film industry witnesses positive changes in the above areas for a  prosperous 2017.