While big Bollywood stars keep their films off theatres for the next 90 days due to power-packed cricket action (World Cup and Indian Premier League, small and medium budget films are trying to make the most of the opportunity.
The producers of these films can take heart from the box office show of Viacom18’s Tanu Weds Manu, which released on February 25. The film managed to net Rs 10 crore in the opening weekend alone, though it clashed with the blockbuster India-England match. The film was produced for Rs 17 crore.
Tanu…’s first-week collections have already gone past Rs 18 crore, according to trade magazine numbers. And Vikram Malhotra, COO, Viacom18 Motion Pictures, expects the good run to continue. The production house has sold the satellite rights of the film to Zee TV and is confident of pocketing a profit in overseas markets, too. “We released the film in India with 800 prints and in international markets with about 80 prints,” says Malhotra.
Trade pundits said over Rs 250 crore was at stake for Bollywood during the cricket season.
Eros International, which brought big-budget films last year including Golmaal 3, Dabangg, Housefull and Enthiran, too has announced the release of Chalo Dilli on April 29. Produced at a shoestring budget of Rs 5 crore, it stars Lara Datta and Vinay Pathak in the lead roles and is pegged as a rib-tickler. Ram Mirchandani, chief creative officer of Eros said, "We are confident about Chalo Dilli, and will release it both in overseas and India markets. Right now, we are talking to satellite channels for film’s broadcast right but haven’t got the right price yet."
Eros is saving up its big-ticket releases like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Ra.One, Agent Vinod, Desi Boyz, Mausam and Rockstar, for post-cricket season. However, Eros is out to cash the one-week breather between World Cup 2011 and IPL-4’s start and will release Game, a whodunit with twists and turns starring Abhishek Bachchan and Kangna Ranaut on April 8. "We believe there will be a lot of big-budget clutter in June, after IPL-4. So, we wanted to make sure that all our films are not pushed for second half of the year," said Mirchandani.
World Cup series will end on April 2 and then IPL-4 will continue till end of May. Trade analysts believe that these films are clearly banking on the cricket fatigue and corridors of relief between World Cup and IPL. Among the movies that are lined up over the next two months include Vikram Bhatt's 3D horror flick Haunted, Sagar Ballary's small-budget sequel Bheja Fry 2, Tigmanshu Dhulia's Shagird and Shefali Shah and Rahul Bose-starrer Kuch Love Jaisa are scheduled to release in the next few weeks when the World Cup fever will be at its peak. Balaji Telefilms too has lined up films like Ragini MMS on May 12 and Shorr on April 28.
Malhotra of Viacom18 Motion Pictures adds, "After seeing the response to Tanu Weds Manu, we are convinced that cricket events do not take away audiences. Next year, we will plan medium to big budgets films during this time frame to capitalise the audience attention." Viacom18 Motion Pictures is pulling all strings to deliver at least 2 more movies before the end of IPL-4.
The World Cup 2011 began with UTV produced and Priyanka Chopra starrer 7 Khoon Maaf — the film failed to heat up the box office and managed just about Rs 15-17 crore in its opening week, post which it registered an audience drop of around 80-85 per cent across theatres.