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Mirroring The Industry: What is corporate booking and why is it happening for Indian Films? Decoding
It’s crucial to write this article on self buyings in today’s time and age as what one hoped would stop in 2023 might just be repeated in 2024. Detailed Report
The buzzwords of 2023 have been “Organic” and “Corporate” when it comes to the Indian Film Trade. There have been malpractices of self-buying and corporate bookings adopted by the players in the film fraternity, which has led to this debate on social media in the post-pandemic world. It all started back in April 2022, an action film, that sold around 90,000 tickets in advance at the top national chains and opened at a mere sum of Rs 6.50 crore. For those unaware, 90,000 tickets in PIC for a mass film indicate an opening of Rs 15 crore.
An Epic Saga Bought Tickets Worth Rs 20 crore in June
You dwell deeper at the macro level of the booking pattern and writing is on the wall. Housefull boards, but no audience. We all stayed silent and the silence gave birth to newer practices in the Indian Film Industry. Over some time, it was discovered that a sum of Rs 10 crore was invested to buy tickets for this film riding high on heroism.
An event epic in 2023 redefined the idea of corporate and self-buying by announcing the names of stakeholders who apparently not just bought the tickets but also distributed them. The number of tickets purchased was in lakhs but made little difference in the outcome of the film. The buzz is, that tickets worth Rs 20 crore were bought in Hindi but the end result was a failure. Another release in June 2023 had minor patterns of self-buyings to ensure long legs and retain shows. Approx, Rs 7 crore were spent to buy self-tickets for perception purposes. Cut to July 2023, and the practice of corporate bookings continued for a big family entertainer too wherein brands came together to distribute free tickets to the customers.
The producers bought and distributed free tickets worth Rs 20 crore via brands over their run in India to reach a certain number. Now before moving further, it’s important to understand the difference of corporate bookings and self-buying. What happened in certain films was certainly a case of self-buying, whereas some others were corporate blocks wherein brands bought tickets and gave them free of cost to their employees and customers to consume the content on the big screen. While both practices are wrong, as there is no real consumption of content by movie-going audiences, the practice of corporate bookings has existed for donkey’s years now, but it never happened at the levels at which it is operating now.
2023 ended with buyings worth Rs 70 crore
Cut to the last releases of 2023. There had been chatter around self-buying on the digital world for both the films, and a glance at trends of certain days and certain shows also indicates some fishy elements. While one film bought tickets on Friday and then the weekdays at lower levels to make the film sustain, it was a case of creating new shows and adding it to the box office numbers for another film. As per industry sources, a massive sum of Rs 70 crore was put in by the two releases combined, with one buying tickets worth Rs 30 crore and the other going a notch hire to Rs 40 crore. Most of the films mentioned above had houseful shows on BMS and no audience inside the hall (The author himself went and checked some of the Housefull shows and has video proofs for the same).
What’s the point of these buyings? The industry knows and in today’s world of social media – even the audience does. Films are made for the consumption of the audience and it’s on them to pass the theatrical verdict. Buying of tickets – self & corporate – might just delay the drop in collections, but won’t make any difference to the overall picture. In our industry, successes and failures are splashed all across, and it’s always right to respectfully accept the results and move on, rather than trying to manufacture outcomes in your favor. The practice will kill the sanctity of the box office and the fun of reporting. Corporate buying happens during festive seasons, but even in that case, a must for actual people to visit the hall. Houseful shows with empty auditoriums is a recipe for disaster. Hope, we smell the coffee, and put in more effort on creating good films, rather than all the malpractices to window-dress the performance for a sub-part project.
Why are corporate bookings happening?
And now we come down to the main point of this article – why are corporate bookings and self-buyings happening? It’s a culmination of multiple factors. Most of the films have slab-based pricing contracts with OTT players i.e. if the film crosses a certain amount, they get a premium price from the digital player. Self-buying of tickets is treated as a marketing expense in the bookings of accounts as the producer often gets back 50 percent of the amount spent. Say for example – X spends Rs 15 crore to buy tickets, Rs 6.5 crore will come back to his pockets as the producer shares from the sale of tickets.
That aside, there are instances where actors too are involved in buying of tickets to ensure that their image of giving a bare minimum opening stays intact. In some cases, the overall budget of ticket buying is split between the actor and the producer at a pre-decided ratio, which reduces the burden on the producer.
It’s crucial to write this article in today’s time and age as what one hoped to stop in 2023 might just be repeated in 2024, as there is already discussion within the industry of producers reaching out to brands and agencies for buying tickets.It's no level playing filed as corporate-aided films will always have that additional cushioning over something that's completely organic, and if the trend continues, the verdict system too might have to evolve with terms like Corporate Aided Hits, Organic Hits, Flop Despite Corporate, and Organic Flops
NOTE: Information Collated From Industry Sources in the Exhibition & Distribution Sector.
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