Bollywood ducks IPL bouncer

Published>Sun, Mar 21 10 02:52 AM

The Indian Premier League extravaganza has failed to queer the pitch for Bollywood this year. After taking a hit in the last two years, Bollywood is undeterred by the third edition of the cricket extravaganza and is all set to more than double its earnings to cross the Rs 80-85-crore mark during March and April, the best of the three IPL years so far.

While the strike by Bollywood producers led to no new release during IPL-2, a majority of the dozen or so films hitting the screen during IPL-1 failed to even recover the costs.

The industry has lined up over 25 films this year, mostly small-budget ones, to be strategically released over the next three months, backed by smart marketing and distribution strategies. Even though these films are eyeing only about a 45-50% theatre occupancy, experts say such small-budget films have been able to cover a large chunk of their production costs through television rights alone.

Some of the upcoming films include Shaapit, Lahore, Mittal Vs Mittal, Well Done Abba, Prince and Hum Tum Aur Ghost, among others.

Experts say since it's a sports-heavy year, most of the big-budget Hindi films have been pushed to the later part of the year, leaving a clear ground for small-budget movies. After IPL-3, cricket lovers would tune in to the T20-World Cup, followed by the football World Cup in South Africa. Further, there has been a revival of satellite rights for Bollywood films this year, especially on the smaller TV networks.

"Most of these films have negotiated a deal with various television channels, both national and local, for an average of Rs 3-5 crore, almost recovering their investments in the process," says a film analyst.

"Besides multiplexes, producers are also targeting some large single-screen theatres for their films that fall in the thriller and horror genre. These genres tend to attract masses," says a Mumbai-based film distributor of one such thriller film on the condition of anonymity.

So far, Bollywood has been able to maintain its momentum in terms of the box-office collections.

Net collections for January and February stood at around Rs 200 crore, almost on a par with the collections during the same period in the last two years.

Bollywood saw a big dip from March to May in 2008 and in 2009, owing to IPL. Last year was particularly bad due to the row between multiplex owners and producers.

Source: Web Search