Yash Chopra is messing with the formula. He hopes that lower budgets, a youth focus, long-term actor contracts, etc., will produce streamlined hits.
Not so long ago, Chopra’s production house, Yash Raj Films, was making films that cost up to Rs 35 crore each. Stars were ready to dump other producers for a role in his films. There would be about a thousand prints, and the films were launched with fanfare across the length and breadth of the country. Chopra hasn’t jettisoned big films — what would his world be without stars, chiffon saris and, of course, Switzerland! But Yash Raj Films’ energy, physical as well as creative, is now focused on low-budget films of not more than Rs 5 crore with lesser-known actors and even downright fresh faces. To make this happen, Yash Raj Films has set up a new division called Y Films. It released Luv Ka The End in May, and plans to hit the screens with Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge on August 12 and Virus Diwan on December 30.
The brief for Y Films is unambiguous. It has to make films that appeal to people between 18 and 24 years in cities, work on small budgets and create a new talent pool with fresh actors and directors. The actors will have to sign three-year contracts with Yash Raj Films. In return, Yash Raj Films will give all possible support to them, which includes endorsements, public relations and even setting up their websites. So, for instance, Anushka Sharma, who played the lead in last year’s Band Baaja Baraat, has got three endorsement deals with some help from Yash Raj Films, while Ranvir Singh, the other lead actor of the film, has been advised not to overexpose himself before the next film under the Yash Raj banner releases. “These films are made by the youth for the youth. The strategy allows us to explore new talent in actors, technicians and directors. This also allows us to come up with innovative and fresh story ideas,” says Chopra.
“India is the youngest country in the world and houses the largest movie-going audience in the world,” adds Yash Raj Films Vice-chairman and Chopra’s media-shy son Aditya Chopra. “With a laser-sharp focus on the youth, we hope to create a brand of cinema that will capture the heart and imagination of this elusive bunch of people.” The results thus far have been mixed. While Band Baja Baraat, released last year, did quite well, Luv Ka The End, according to industry estimates, did box office collections of only Rs 4.5 crore; it couldn’t even recover its costs. The company, however, claims that the 25 prints of the film that were sent abroad (USA, UAE, Fiji, Kenya, et al) have done better than expected and fetched it $100,000 (Rs 45 lakh, approximately). The performance of the next two films will decide whether Chopra and Yash Raj Films stay the course or come up with a new survival strategy.
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Apart from the newfound love for the youth, the shift is dictated by hardcore business realities. “Earlier, when Chopra or his son was directing films [the father last directed Veer Zaara in 2004, while the son directed Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi in 2008], we could make maybe one film in two years. This year, we have five films on the floor, and next year we could double the number,” says Yash Raj Films Vice-president (marketing and communications) Rafiq Gangjee. The production house, in other words, is hedging its risks.
Yash Raj Films, for all its success, has also had more than its measure of failure. Film analysts say that last year, of the four films it produced, two (Lafangey Parindey and Pyaar Impossible) were flops, one (Badmaash Company) barely managed to recover its money and only one (Band Baja Baraat) became a hit. The lesson that stars and big-budget movies don’t always fetch good returns was first driven home in 2007 when Yash Raj Films earned only 10 per cent return from four high-budget films, down from 85 per cent from three films in 2006 and 150 per cent from three films in 2004. That year, expensive films like Jhoom Barabar Jhoom with Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta and Lara Dutta, Aaja Nachle with Madhuri Dixit and Laaga Chunari Mein Daag with Rani Mukherjee had bombed in the market. What saved Yash Raj Films was the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Chak De! India.
In the fickle world of Bollywood, there is no mantra for success. Yash Raj Films even tried its hand, in association with Disney, at animation. The result was Roadside Romeo (2008), a commercial disaster. “We realised the animation market cannot give you box office collections of more than Rs 3-5 crore. Its time has not come, unlike in Hollywood,” says Gangjee. The next experiment is Y Films. “Instead of making one movie for Rs 50 crore, you can now make 10 movies for that money. So your risk of failure is distributed across more films. And with big stars and banners not being able to necessarily pull audiences, it is a safe bet to stay afloat,” says an industry insider. “The youth comprises the largest chunk of the country’s movie-going population — as much as 83 per cent of the audience is aged between 15 and 35. We have sliced a part of this for our youth movies,” adds Yash Raj Films Vice-president (business) and Creative Head Asish Patil.
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One unstated benefit of producing a number of films together is that aggregation helps pare costs. Hollywood studios have long thrived on this simple business tool. In India, Ram Gopal Verma used it by launching two or three films with the same ensemble of actors, technicians and musicians. It worked for a while; then Verma’s creative instincts went haywire and his films began to sink without a trace. Using this time-tested formula, Yash Raj wants to cap Y Films’ budget for producing movies at Rs 5 crore apiece. An equal amount, says Patil, is set aside for advertising and marketing — nothing less will do to push new stars as well as a new concept.
Costs are kept down by the Hollywood-like contracts which fresh actors and directors sign with Yash Raj Films. Typically, these are three-year contracts with escalations thrown in if they deliver a hit. Industry experts say that Yash Raj Films pays between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 50 lakh for a new face and increases it if the first film is a hit. Most newcomers are ready to sign this contract because (1) it fetches them work for three years and (2) they get to act in more than one film under the Yash Raj banner. Yash Raj Films defends the contract on the ground that it is the production house that takes the initial risk and spends marketing money to morph the greenhorns into stars. And, adds Patil, the contract is not a straitjacket — all the actors need to do is inform Yash Raj Films before they sign up with another film-maker. “Look at Anushka Sharma; she did Patiala House which is not our movie, though she has a three-year contract with us.”
Leveraging technology has helped cut production costs dramatically. So, the movies made by Y Films will be distributed digitally and not through the traditional prints because they will be shown mostly in multiplexes. “A single print could cost as much as Rs 50,000, and you also save on the shipping costs. The digital cost is just one-third of a print, which is a huge saving,” points out Yash Raj Films Vice-president (strategy and business affairs) Akshaye Widhani. For these low-budget films, Yash Raj Films has bought MX-red cameras which are the next big thing in movie production. These cameras shoot on a digital platform, which saves the cost of tapes and spools in conventional cameras. “The savings typically could be as high as 20 per cent of the cost, or Rs 1 crore, which is big for a small-budget movie” adds Widhani.
Since these movies are meant for the cities and multiplexes, it helps Y Films control the distribution costs better. For instance, Luv Ka The End debuted in only 400 screens, compared to a typical Yash Raj film which is shown in over 1,000 screens. Considering the urbane nature of the content, the movie was restricted to only the top 10 cities where 90 per cent of the screens are in multiplexes.
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Does Yash Raj Films have the managerial bandwidth to function like a modern industrial enterprise? Creative genius apart, Indian film-makers are infamous for their unprofessional ways. The company, to begin with, has formed eight strategic business units — talent management, Y Films, television, distribution, studio, digital, home video and big-budget films — and each will be an independent profit centre. The plan is to either list some of them on the stock market or rope in partners. The company also seems to be attracting talent. Widhani, for instance, was a banker in New York, and had two offers from India — one from ABN Amro and the other from Yash Raj Films. He was pretty clear that he would not join a film company but Aditya Chopra convinced him over a two-hour meeting. Patil, likewise, has come on board from MTV.
Still, Yash Raj Films is unlikely to have a free run. UTV has launched UTV Spot Boy to encourage upcoming talent, newer techniques and new formats of film-making. Under the UTV Spot Boy banner, the production house has released DevD, No One Killed Jessica and Udaan. In February, Viacom 18 raised the curtain on Tipping Point Films, its new banner to cater to the urban youth by offering edgy, engaging film content. “The idea is to provide bandwidth and thinking flexibility, and encourage novel plots and newer talent. It also helps to bring diverse projects within the same production house through different brands,” says Viacom 18 Motion Pictures COO Vikram Malhotra.
If the experiment fails, Chopra of course has the chiffon saris, stars and Switzerland to go back to.