Tag Archives: Bollywood

Cinema News Roundup - 29 May 2009 - Indian theme day

May 29, 2009

- The stand-off between Indian multiplexes and Bollywood distributors appears to be close to being resolved, according to several news sources. TOI says, “Evidently, it was the producers who first blinked. An industry insider said, “The final settlement reads 50 per cent in the first week, 42.5 per cent in the second week and 35 per cent revenue in the third week for the producer of all films.”" With films taking an average four weeks to launch, don’t expect a Bollywood title next weekend, and while Hollywood has turned the tap back on for its titles, Sony Pictures’ “Angels and Demons” won’t be showing in Indian multiplexes this weekend, playing only in single screens. According to Businessofcinema.com, “sources inform that Sony is quoting revenue sharing terms of 55:45 (Sony:multiplexes), 50:50, 45:55 and 40:60 for the first four weeks to national multiplex chains. “The terms quoted by Sony are not viable and acceptable in the current scenario. As of today, we have not yet signed up with Sony for Angels & Demons,” said a multiplex officer, on condition of anonymity.” For past big Hollywood titles the split was 52:48 first week, but multiplex owners appear to balk at 55:45 for a heavily censored Tom Hanks running around a replica Vatican;

- The end to the Bollywood stand-off will come too late for some, with victims of the impasse to be found on the other side of the globe. The New York Times highlights how ‘A Dispute Half a World Away Darkens a Movie House in Queens’ as the Eagle Cinema (pictures above) in the New York borough went dark for lack of Masala movies. “In Mumbai, India, a seven-week-old strike by film producers has brought Bollywood, that country’s multibillion-dollar film industry, to a halt. The Eagle specializes in first-run Bollywood movies, and without a supply of new films, theaters like it around the world have had to screen old ones, dip into the pricier Hollywood and European film catalogs — or shut down. “You get more frustrated when you have no say in it,” said Mohammad Asif, a Pakistani businessman who helps to manage the 500-seat Eagle, nestled in the heart of a neighborhood thick with immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and shops selling products from South Asia. “We’re not part of their problem, but we’re affected.“” Worse then the strike, overseas Bollywood theatres are hurt by piracy, with pirated Bollywood films sold openly in Indian corner shops in a way that they would never get away with if they were selling Hollywood copies;

golf-glen

- But piracy is not deterring Indian film and cinema major Adlabs, whose BIG Cinemas is opening a deluxe five-screen multiplex in Chicago this weekend. This is the first re-built-from-scratch cinema that BIG Cinemas has opened in US, having bought 170+ screens from other operator. From Business Standard, “The multiplex, Big Cinemas-Golf Glen, is located in Niles, Chicago. It will have five screens and a premium lounge. The facility will be digitally connected to Adlabs India, enabling the films to be transferred on fibre optic cable within four to six hours instead of using physical films, a statement issued by the company said.” The cinema will be showing free movies and there’s an opening party with over 1,000 invitees. (Full disclosure: I work for Adlabs, but sadly didn’t get invited for the opening. <sniff>);

- Establishing a foot-hold in Europe, Adlabs has also signed a ground breaking deal with Pathe Cinemas to expand the reach of Bollywood in The Netherlands. From ET, “In the Netherlands, the company will roll out three Big Cinemas screens in Pathé Theaters’ existing megaplexes in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Hague. “Pathé is a perfect fit in our global strategy to bring Indian movies to Europe and other continents. Starting with the Netherlands, we will explore other countries in Europe,” says Anil Arjun, CEO of Adlabs Films.” With some 700,000 Bollywood fans (of Indian, Pakistani, Afghani, Turkish and Moroccan origin) living in Holland, this market seems ripe for exploitation. (Disclaimer again: I still work for Adlabs, but can take no credit for this deal);

- But while Adlabs is going overseas for cinemas, overseas exhibitors are going to India to open screens. Mexican exhibition giant Cinepolis has designs on the Indian multiplex market . THR.com took notice, “Mexican multiplex major Cinepolis will become the first international theatrical player to foray into India with plans to invest about ($78.45 million) to launch 110 screens across eight cities over the next three years to start with. New Delhi-based Cinepolis India country head Milan Saini said Friday that the first property will open in the second half of this year.” Cinepolis plans to make India its largest market outside Mexico. Nachos with paneer masala dip anyone?

- Cinepolis might be encouraged by the fact that bad quarterly figures were posted by both Inox (down eight per cent) and Cinemax (down 56 per cent), shares in Indian multiplex operators have been up recently. From Businessofcinema.com, “Despite low occupancy levels due to the strike and IPL, multiplex companies’ stock prices have been up between 25 - 70 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). While Inox Leisure’s stock price has been up 69.1 per cent in the last one month from Rs 33.50 to Rs 56.65; Adlabs Films, which operates BIG Cinemas, has seen a 44.71 per cent rise in share price from Rs 236.10 a month back to Rs 341.65 currently. On the other hand, PVR stock price has also seen a rise of 44.23 per cent over the last one month and the stock is quoting at Rs 123.75 currently from Rs 85.80 a month back. Cinemax India witnessed a rise of 38.05 per cent in its stock price from Rs 46.65 to Rs 64.40; whereas Fame India’s stock has been up 25.49 per cent from Rs 12.67 to Rs 15.90.” Don’t buy tickets at the box office - buy shares in the cinemas themselves! (Disclaimer: CelluloidJunkie’s frivolous comments should NEVER be mistaken for sound stock investment advice. Ever.);

- But the stock market surge will not save the fortunes of Mumbai’s decaying single-screen cinemas. From livemint.com, “Along with Regal, New Empire, Eros and New Excelsior cinemas, Liberty constitutes the remainder of Mumbai’s Art Deco cinemas, which dominated the cinema-going scene from their inception in the mid-1930s onwards. But now, faced with hurdles, including a dearth of new releases, as well as hefty entertainment taxes and competition from multiplexes, the survival of these structures, characterized by their geometrical shapes and vibrant colours, is hanging in the balance.” Perhaps one of them will get bought up by Cinepolis and converted to a multiplex, as Adlabs did with Metro cinema. Do your bit for these masterpieces of picturehouse architecture and watch “Angels and Demons” there this weekend.

Popularity: 24% [?]

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Daily Cinema Roundup - Tue 21 April

By Patrick von Sychowski

April 21, 2009

- Despite a proliferation of new multiplexes in the major cities, China still faces a massive cinema shortage reports Xinhuanet. ““Many cities in the western regions still don’t have modern cinemas with multiple screening rooms,” Mao Yu, vice president of the SARFT told Xinhua. Mao said, a total of 2,860 counties across the country have no cinema at all, which “severely” limited the development of the country’s film market. Statistics from the SARFT show that, the country’s box office for the first quarter of 2009 totaled 1.25 billion yuan (about 183 million U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 50 percent.” Chinese cinema growth could thus leapfrog western in terms of going digital by installing digital but no analogue from day one.;

- Heather (Rollergirl) Graham’s latest film “Baby On Board” will release in D-Cinema and E-Cinemas in the US. Distributed by Angry Monkey Entertainment (AME), note the angry language when it comes to the technology issues. “AME implements encoding and digital compression technology to conform film releases to a high standard approaching the quality of D-Cinema - without costly licensing fees and exclusive equipment contracts that penalize exhibitors through bad profit-participation agreements. E-Cinema theaters, which today greatly outnumber D-Cinema installations, circumvent D-Cinema’s corporate licensing restrictions and subsequent revenue loss to theater owners. As reasonably-priced HD projectors and servers allow smaller regional theaters to embrace E-Cinema, affordable content can extend the use of these installations beyond pre-shows and corporate presentations.” No word on which E-Cinema network will be targeted (NCM Fathom? Emerging Pictures?);

- Carmike and Screenvision (NOT Bigger Picture, interestingly enough) will be bringing stand up comedy to the big screen. “STAND-UP 360 will be delivering a series of feature-length stand-up comedy performances recorded live at the Broadway Comedy Club in NYC.” This is perhaps not such a big deal, given the past 35mm releases of “Eddie Murphy Raw” and “The Original Kings of Comedy“;

- India’s Adlabs has been piping Bollywood films to the US over Relaince Globalcom’s fibre optic network. From Variety. “Adlabs also plans to bring movies and alternative content from India and other foreign-language territories to niche auds in Reliance’s American theaters. Adlabs’ Big chain owns 21 theaters with 166 screens in the U.S., targeted at areas with large immigrant communities. The entire chain should be converted to digital production within 18 months. Adlabs has already used the Reliance Globalcom network to send recent Indian pics “Ghajini,” “Luck by Chance” and “Delhi 6″ to screens in New Jersey and California.” Press release here. [Full disclosure: I was involved in setting this up and running it];

- Hollywood distributors appear to be supporting their Indian colleagues in postponing releases of new titles to Indian multiplexes according to Businessofcinema.com. “A source informs that Fox Star Studios has also postponed the release of its upcoming flick X-Men 4: Wolverine, which was to release in India on 1 May. Warner Bros India was looking at releasing two Hollywood films in Bombay and Delhi on 17 April. However, these movies are not playing at any multiplexes as of 20 April.” US anti-trust laws means that the Hollywood distributors cannot formally join in the strike/boycott/non-release;

- In a sign of the time,s Hollywood studios are cutting back on adverts for new releases in printed newspapers, according to the LA Times (which must be worried). “While studios, many of which have remained fairly loyal to print advertising, have been running smaller movie ads in recent years, Fox has made a bolder break with tradition, releasing four movies this year alone where the studio has run minimal newspaper ads or, in the case of ”Dragonball” and “Street Fighter,” released in late February, no ads at all.” More fodder for the name-says-it-all NewspaperDeathWatch blog?;

- UK’s Cinema Advertising Association has published research that people still intend to spend money going to the cinema. “The research, which was carried out at the end of last year, found that 62% of those surveyed said they planned to spend the same amount on cinema tickets as they did before the credit crunch.” A quarter of the 3,000 people surveyed said that they had made repeat visits to a cinema to see the same film.;

- French cinema circuit CGR has signed a deal with RealD to roll out 3D widely. From the press release, “This is another example of CGR Cinemas seizing opportunities first, which make it one of the pillars of French film exhibition today. This collaboration will allow us to take advantage of upcoming 3D films beginning with Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” said Jocelyn Bouyssy, chief executive officer of CGR Cinemas.” No word on how many systems will deployed and no mention or aknowledgment of integrator Arts Alliance Media;

Popularity: 41% [?]

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Daily Cinema Roundup - Sun 19 April 2009

By Patrick von Sychowski

April 19, 2009

syrian-cinema

- UK cinema goers spent GBP 250m in the first quarter of 2009, reports the FT, with “Slumdog Millionaire” leading the way with 6m visitors. “The latest figures, compiled by the Film Distributors’ Association (FDA), support the frequent claim that cinema-going, perceived as a cheap night out, actually increases during times of economic hardship.”;

- Multiplex opening in Damascus represents the first new cinema to open in the Syrian capital since 1985. AFP reports that just 10 cinemas in Syria cater to the city’s population of 4m, though only two of them are functioning effectively (see photo above). “Filmmakers and cinema owners blame the parlous state of the industry on high taxes slapped on admission tickets, the state’s financing of commercial instead of artistic productions and the ready availability of pirated DVDs.”;

- Adding to Pakistan’s many other woes, the renewed screening of Bollywood (Indian Hindi) films in the past two years has failed to attract audiences back to the cinemas, according to The Hindu. “After the closure of 1,300 of the 1,500 cinema halls across the country in recent times, the Pakistan Film Exhibitors Association pressed the government to allow the screening of Indian movies, saying it was the only way to save the remaining 200 theatres.” But of some 5 Bollywood films released, only “Singh I Kinng” was a hit.Terrorism and piracy said to be to blame.

- Radio on the big screen! US National Public Radio (NPR) is coming to some 400 cinemas near you. ‘This American Life - Live’ “Popular NPR show will be simulcast live to more than 400 theaters in the country. Ira Glass to host. Guests include Joss Whedon, David Rakoff, Starlee Kline, Mike Birbiglia and Dan Savage. When: 8 p.m. Thursday Cost: $20, available through www.Fandango.com or at the theater.”

big-six-mux-losses

- Indian multiplexes have lost Rs 450m ($9m) since the Bollywood producers’ non-release boycott began on 4 April, according to Indiantelevision. Its research article states that ” this difference in occupancy rates would amount to revenue losses of Rs 850-900 million per month in multiplexes. This figure is much lesser than Rs 1-1.5 billion per month as is being claimed by some industry sources.”

- 2008 was a record year for German films at cinemas according to Welt Online (in German). Local fare accounted for 27 per cent of box office, the highest in two decades. Cinema going in the ge bracket 20-29 is down while the 40+ is up, confirming world wde trends of baby boomers re-discovering the joy of cinema going;

- Philips Electronics researchers have come up with a haptic jacket, lined with vibration motors, that ‘lets you feel the movies‘. ““We want people to feel Bruce Lee’s anxiety about whether he will get out alive,” says the Philips researcher. The jacket, responding to signals encoded in the DVD or to a program designed to control the jacket on the fly, can do a host of things, such as “causing a shiver to go up the viewer’s spine and creating the feeling of tension in the limbs.”” No plans for matching trousers yet.

Popularity: 19% [?]

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End of line for India’s exploitation cinemas?

By Patrick von Sychowski

February 11, 2008

It looks like the corporatization of the Indian film industry coupled with the relentless drive of the multiplex building is slowly killing off the exploitation films of the crime (’dacoit‘), horror and semi-nudity variety, alongside the cinemas that show them. From the Times of India:

Released in unkempt cinema halls rife with mosquitoes and bedbugs, watching them was like being part of an involuntary blood donation camp. Yet the underclass thronged to see them. These films made money.

But hard times are here now. Go through the list of 2007 films and you’ll find that the number of dacoit and horror movies has dwindled sharply as compared to five years ago. There’s the odd Gabbar Singh (director: Kanti Shah) but Mahakaal , also screened last year, was no desi scare flick. It’s a dubbed Hollywood movie starring Nicholas Cage. Recent ads in trade magazines also indicate that of the three, only the soft porn sub-genre survives.

Kanti Shah, director of many mini-budget dacoit dramas, says it is “lock-out” time for the genre.

Few will mourn the passing of these films and genres. Like in the West, the films find their way to the consumer in the comforts of the home environment through DVDs and the Internet, or for those that live seven to a room, there is still the last refuge of the video parlour. From the ToI again:

The rise of the VCD/DVD industry has adversely affected C-grade filmmakers. In Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, locally made VCD players are sold for as little as Rs 1,000. In rural areas they can be hired for Rs 50 a night with a package of three movies thrown in. The VCD player has largely made the dingy kasbah theatre, once the bastion of C-grade films, quite redundant.

Purists may snigger but social scientist Shiv Viswanathan believes such films play an important part in any changing society. The genre, he says, is an overt enactment of a crude fantasy. “The so-called C-grade narratives have a folksy coarseness. Unlike the subliminal mainstream Bollywood movies, these films are blatant in whatever they do. For those in an act of transition in urban spaces, they help perform the task in an easier, smoother way. They are not bad movies. They just project an alternate layer of reality,” he says.

The passing of that ‘alternate layer of reality’ is perhaps what we should mourn is perhaps what we should mourn instead of the crumbling places that were showing them.

Popularity: 26% [?]

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A cinema holiday bigger than Thanksgiving

By Patrick von Sychowski

November 11, 2007

That would be Diwali, celebrated in India, its neighboring states and NRIs (non-resident Indians) all over the world. The five-day Festival of Light has in recent years become the favourite holiday for the big ticket Bollywood film releases. And this year was the biggest of them all, with the head-head battle of ‘Om Shanti Om‘, starring the King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan, versus the Sony Pictures-backed ‘Saawariya‘.The proof of just how big the Diwali release event has become is amply demonstrated by the fact that ‘Saawariya’ out grossed ‘Lions for Lambs’ at the international box office. From The Hollywood Reporter:

“Saawariya,” a nearly three-hour musical in Hindi with English subtitles based on Dostoyevsky’s “White Nights,” brought in an estimated $15.4 million from 900 screens in 13 markets. Almost all of the gross came from India, where the film opened No. 2 with an estimated $14.4 million from 754 screens.

“Lions,” director Robert Redford’s reading of contemporary events in Washington and the Middle East, opened at 2,681 screens in 45 markets for an estimated $10.3 million, less than $4,000 per screen. The film, costarring Cruise, Meryl Streep and Redford, also opened this weekend as the No. 4 film domestically.

While THR speculates that ‘Lions for Lambs’ under-performed due to bad reviews, the largely negative reviews of ‘Saawariya’ in Indian press (compared to a much more glowing review from the THR, which clearly does not understand Hindi-language cinema that well) did not hamper its first weekend performance. But while ‘Saawariya’ conquered the international box office, the domestic Indian battle appears to have been won by OSO, according to the Economic Times:

NEW DELHI: The audience verdict is out. The box office seems to favour Shah Rukh Khan’s ” Om Shanti Om ” in comparison to Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s much-touted magnum opus ” Saawariya “.

While King Khan’s film registered 90 percent occupancy across the country on its Diwali release, Bhansali’s love story managed 60 percent.
…
According to Vishal Kapur, COO of Fun Cinemas, the Shah Rukh film has generated a lot of repeat audience interest in comparison to ” Saawariya “.

“Among our 15 cineplexes across the country, the bigger ones did a business of at least Rs.500,000 and smaller ones Rs.150,000 on Friday. ‘ Saawariya ‘ churned out Rs.350,000 at the big centres, while at the smaller ones it could only manage to collect Rs.78,000,” Kapur told IANS.
…

The difference of how well both the films would do in the coming days is also evident from the advance bookings.

“For Saturday, 50 percent of advance booking has been done for ‘Om Shanti Om’ while for ‘Saawariya’ it is just a little over 20 percent,” said Ashok Bisht, assistant manager of JAM multiplex, Noida.

According to Screen International, OSO took $17m in India, outperforming ‘Saawariya’s’ $14.4m from 754 screens. So when ‘OSO’ goes big internationally we should expect it to perform even better than ‘Saawariya’. The growth of the Indian film industry has been noted by Fortune, which in an article called ‘ Time to short Facebook, buy Bollywood‘ believes that the film, cinema and media industry of South Asia has the better long term growth potential:

PriceWaterhouse Coopers forecasts that India is going to have the fastest growing media and entertainment industry in the world, rising at a compound growth rate of 18.5% between 2006 and 2011. The film business alone is expected to double in size during that period, to some $4.4 billion.

And what is perhaps most uniquely fascinating about the movie business in India is how popular it is domestically — some 95% of movie tickets sold in India are to see Indian films (this despite the increasing availability of dubbed versions of popular Hollywood films and the somewhat overdue arrival of multiplex theaters offering filmgoers much greater choice.)

That 95%, by the way, is roughly in line with how popular American films are in their home market, and dramatically different than how domestic films fare in a lot of other major markets. According to some academic studies, French and Japanese films sell only around 1/3 of the tickets in those countries, the domestic take at the box office is even lower in Britain.

The latest financial figures of the four major Indian exhibitors confirm this verdict - and that’s before the takings of this Diwali’s releases were counted. A Happy Diwali indeed for Indian exhibitors.

Popularity: 22% [?]

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How multiplex arrival changed Bollywood

By Patrick von Sychowski

October 13, 2007

King of Bollywood SRK A very interesting Q&A with author Anupama Chopr about her book King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema over at the Freakonomics blog by Melissa Lafsky. It looks at how the Indian/Hindi film industry (a.k.a. Bollywood) has changed in the last decade-and-a-half, partly due to the arrival of multiplex cinemas. The two key paragraphs are:

The Hindi film industry in Mumbai, or Bollywood, has been completely overhauled in the last 15 years or so. When I first started writing about film in 1993 for India Today, Bollywood was, generally speaking, a large cottage industry. It was hugely disorganized and chaotic, and run by a handful of powerful and independent film dynasties. Stars were power centers, but they were filming two to three pictures at a time and running from one studio to another (back then, a studio meant only “a space in which to shoot,” not a film-making entity). Filmmakers raised money from varied sources — which sometimes included shady men with mafia connections. The mainstream press rarely covered the industry; urban, educated, affluent India saw it largely as an anarchic space, run by crass people making low-brow fare for the masses.

But a combination of factors transformed Bollywood. A key event was the arrival of multiplexes in 1997. Prior to that, Hindi cinema usually played in 1000-seat halls, leaving no outlets for smaller, niche films — if you couldn’t fill a hall that large, you were, financially speaking, dead on arrival. Multiplexes offered filmmakers a chance to speak exclusively to educated, urban Indians who, thanks to liberalization and the ensuing affluence, didn’t hesitate before spending 200 rupees ($5) on a movie ticket. The high ticket prices (single-screen theaters, by contrast, only cost 40 to 80 rupees, or $1 to $2) then made smaller films financially viable. This created what we call “The Multiplex Film” (essentially the equivalent of the Hollywood Indie film).

I can attest from first hand experience that the multiplex growth in India is taking place at a furious pace. Though even with current mall/multiplex growth rates it will take years to re-adjust the imbalance for what is still a massively under-screened country (12 screens per million inhabitants, compared to 117 per million in the US), despite having the world’s largest film industry and collectively churning out 800-1,000 films per year.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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India is becoming multiplex capital of the world

By Patrick von Sychowski

September 19, 2007

For a country that produces more films than Hollywood and sells more tickets each year than the US, you would think that India had a lot of cinemas. It doesn’t. Rather shockingly it is one of the most under-screened countries in the whole world. Whereas in the US there are 177 screens per million inhabitants, in India that figure is just 12. So with a middle class of some 300m people, there is a lot of scope for multiplex growth in India. According to the article ‘Multiplex biz continues to show impressive growth‘ in Newindpress.com some 1,200m crore ($300m) over the next two years, and it’s mainly being pushed by shopping mall building:

Atul Goel, CEO, E-City Ventures says, “Cinema has always been a crowd puller. Cinema multiplexes are a perfect example of convergence of retail and entertainment across the mall and high-street organised shopping formats. Multiplexes are now proving themselves to be an integral part of a successful shopping mall.

Multiplexes increase footfalls by a whopping 40 to 50 percent and also offer and ideal opportunity for shopping-centre developers to attract boutique and anchor retailers to their development”

The trend is only set to grow as many Indian states lower entertainment taxes on cinema tickets that can range form 80 to 100 per cent on top of the price. This come as the film making industry, long the preserve of financing form organised crime as banks refused to lend money to film producers (who were not regarded as a legitimate industry), is expanding and getting more corporate. This from the article ‘How the reforms changed Bollywood‘ from the Times of India:

Today, financial liberalisation has transformed the industry. Filmmakers, small and large, can get bank finance, mostly easily from the new private sector banks. Some filmmakers have floated new companies on stock markets, and rewarded investors with good profits and high share prices. Some who started small are getting big. UTV, for instance, has tied up with Will Smith for two Hollywood films, and has sold an equity stake to Walt Disney. Big business houses (Tata, Zee) are also entering the industry.

Equally amazing to the level of under-screening of India is the fact that the country has no major studio system for producing films. It is only in recent years that independent producers are finding homes in larger organizations. As India and China grow in the coming decades, we are likely to see them making even greater inroads into overseas markets. Already this has started happening on the multiplex side, with the news that ‘India’s Pyramid Saimira bids for Australian multiplex chain Hoyts‘ (from Forbes.com). Don’t be surprised if Indian brand multiplexes will one day be found across the US and Europe, but for now they have a big home market to focus on.

Popularity: 12% [?]

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