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Mirroring The Industry: The digital market rate crash is good news for the Hindi Cinema and audience – Decoding The Risk Reward Ratio
Scripts? Well, why would a producer not make a sub-par film if he is making profits on the table without shooting a single frame. Detailed Discussion
Last night, through a discussion, a friend said, “If you give me your car for free, I won’t use it responsibly. But if I pay for it, I will take care of it for a long time.” A simple statement got me thinking about how risk will always make an individual more responsible, and co-related the scenario with the Hindi Film Industry. The rise of pricing in the digital world made a lot of producers a little complacent paying more attention to the return on investment and less attention on the scripts.
The Digital Boom pushed producers to focus on quantity over quality
The last 5 years saw ample of projects being greenlit all across the board because they were profitable on the table. ‘Take a decent star with some market value, make the film for Rs 50 crore, sell the non-theatrical for Rs 50 crore, and let all the theatrical revenue be profit,’ became the formula of filmmaking. Most of the projects were sanctioned if the cost of production was covered by the sale of satellite, digital and music, and the projects were rejected if the same were not.
Scripts? Well, why would a producer not make a sub-par film if he is making profits on the table without shooting a single frame as every film with a known face will come with a bare minimum business potential of Rs 20 crore, leading to a share of Rs 10 crore to the producer acting as profit. In the lue of doing so, the quality of content came down massively. While yes, all films got positive reviews from the media circles, the same never translated to the big screen. There was a time when films were made for legacy, now films are considered to be fast food - aao, banao, non-theatrical se kamao and bhul jao.
An in-depth study to know more about the importance of critic reviews drew us to the conclusion that all the posts with those 3.5, 4, and 5 stars helped the producers to pull off a better perception for their sub-par films among the digital circuits. Same for the corporate booking tactics, when producers invested 5 crores to buy tickets, to get an additional premium of Rs 10 crore from digital players.
The bubble of perception lasted for some years, pushing the producers to make some of the most below-average feature films. “The last 5 years have seen bad subjects making it to the floors because of 0 risk for the producers. Almost every banner of Hindi Cinema, with the exception of Maddock, has made some of the worst films of their prolonged careers, out of sheer temptation to make the most out of the digital boom,” the insider adds.
The Digital Players pull up their socks, slow down on investment
But the tide has now changed, as the digital players, who were new to the world of Hindi or rather Indian Cinema, have now decoded the culture. This has of course resulted in a massive drop in digital pricing of feature films. “The films which fetched Rs 50 crore from digital players a year back, are now getting Rs 30 crore. There is a dip in acquisition pricing and this has put the producers at risk again,” the insider explains.
As the risk quotient is back in the business of filmmaking, the producers are being cautious of the subjects they are greenlighting. “The entire debate of focusing on scripts, keeping budgets in check, the actor fees in check, and the entourage costs under control is back in the business. Projects no longer are greenlit just for the sake off, as the producers have started to go back to the drawing board by bringing creativity in the forefront alongside the Excel sheets. This slow-down is actually the much-needed break for the industry to rebuild and reconstruct itself by getting rid of all the vices that had taken over the core structure,” the insider concluded.
Filmmaking has always been a blend of arts with commerce, but unfortunately, the OTT boom got the better of the industry. The lower the risk, higher the intent to maximize the revenue, leading to compromises in the product. The higher the risk, higher the intent to make a good film, leading to higher chances of making big profits. It’s on you to decide, what you want. Cheers!
ALSO READ: Mirroring The Industry: ‘Bada Hai Toh Behetar Hai’; Not always applicable
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