 "Happy New Year to travel to China")
Gaurav Verma, chief revenue officer, Red Chilies Entertainment explains, “Ideally, when the movie is released overseas on the day and date of the Indian release , it targets the diaspora and South Asian audiences in international territories. Thus, UK, North America and Middle East are the main markets or the traditional markets. In the second phase, we look at non-diaspora markets where the movie would attract audiences.”
In its first phase, the movie was released in as many as 1000 screens abroad with main focus on the traditional markets such as Germany, Pakistan and Australia and New Zealand. The film has been released with sub-titles in these markets.
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“In the second phase, the focus is going to be on the non-diaspora markets. We plan to take the movie to China in a big way. Earlier this year, we took Dhoom-3 to the country across more than 2000 screens. With Happy New Year, we want to increase this number. We will also be customising the movie to suit the Chinese audiences’ tastes and will be dubbing it in Mandarin,” says Avtar Panesar, who heads international distribution for Yash Raj Films. The team hopes to release the movie in the first quarter of next calendar year.
Verma from Red Chilies adds that the non-diaspora audiences in European countries like France could also be targeted for the second phase of release. “While we have released the film with sub-titles there, we are looking at capturing the local audience in these countries with a dubbed version,” he says.
Happy New Year will be one of the few Indian movies to be dubbed in Mandarin. Before this, two major films have got a dubbed release in China, both starring Aamir Khan. Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots, which was one of the most successful Bollywood movies in China, was dubbed in Mandarin so was Dhoom 3.
He reveals that apart from dubbing the movie in Mandarin, Happy New Year’s run-time will also need to be trimmed. Movies in China are usually around two hours long and the imports from Hollywood also have similar durations. Thus, the movie, which is a little under three hours long, will need some work on the editing table. Panesar reveals that the cuts will be made so that the screenplay is not affected and the final call will be made after approval from the Chinese film body.
On July 25 this year, YRF released Aamir Khan and Abhishek Bachchan starrer Dhoom 3 in China. It had tied up with HGC Entertainment, a Chinese distribution company specialising in bringing foreign film content to China and distributing it. This time, the Chinese distribution partner is different says Panesar, but refrained from naming the company for now. Dhoom 3 did a business of approximately $4 million in China (Rs 24 crore)
Chinese regulations cap the number of foreign movies imported to the country at 34 a year. Thus, in order to get a wide release in the country, film-makers need to set the wheels in motion much before the release of the film, even in India. “With Dhoom 3, we went to the Chinese market around seven to eight months later. We want to make it sooner for Happy New Year and hence are targeting the first quarter of 2015,” says Panesar. He adds that with piracy, the longer a movie takes to reach the movie screens (in China), the bleaker are its chances of success.
Apart from China, the movie will also travel to Japan, Korea and other South East Asian countries. For now, the plans are to release subtitled versions of Happy New Year in these territories. “Depending on the response we get and what our local partners, we shall decide whether to dub it (in the respective local language) or not,” says Panesar.
Happy New Year stars Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Boman Irani and Sonu Soog apart from Shah Rukh Khan and is directed by Farah Khan. The movie has netted close to Rs 205 crore in India, making it the second highest grosser of the year after Salman Khan’s Kick, which made Rs 233 crore (approx).