Bollywood pins hopes on year-end releases

, 2007 has been a relatively bad year for Bollywood as its domestic box-office collections for the first 11 months have registered a 35 per cent dip in comparison to the 2006 calendar year.

Also, film producers have managed only a 23 per cent return on their investments from the current year in comparison to 67 per cent in 2006, according to trade data and film analysts.

An analysis of the top-20 grossers for Bollywood (released between January 1- December 31) suggests that in 2006 the domestic box-office collections were to the tune of Rs 806 crore against an estimated investments of about Rs 470 crore.

But for the current year, the first 11 months have witnessed collections of about Rs 602 crore, so far, against an estimated investments of about Rs 490 crore.

Even a head-to-head comparison of some of the biggest Hindi-films grossers of 2006 and the current year shows a dip in box-office collections.

Last year, between Krrish, Dhoom-2, Fanna and Lage Raho Munnabhai, there were collections of about Rs 300 crore, while the top-four grossers of 2007 (Om Shanti Om, Chak De India, Guru and Partner) shows a collections of about Rs 200 crore.

But film-trade analyst Taran Adarsh feels that 2007 will close with box-office collections comparable to last year. "This year has also been good for Bollywood."

With Aamir's Tare Zameen Par and Dus Kahaniyan slated for release next week, collections will improve from what they are now. I feel, it's too early to write-off 2007," Adarsh told Business Standard.

However, trade analysts feel that a lot is hanging on the success of Taare Zameen Par and Dus Kahaniyan "" two big releases for this month that may improve the box-office collections by 10-15 per cent thereby increasing this year's overall collections to over Rs 690 crore.

If that happens, then 2007 will not be a bad year in comparison to the collections of 2006 as then the gap between 2007 and 2006 collections will narrow down to about 12-15 per cent, trade analysts pointed out.

But the dip in collections for the first 11 months of this year are attributed by trade pundits to less number of films grossing at least Rs 50 crore in 12-month period.

"In 2006, at least seven films grossed over Rs 50 crore domestically, while this year there are only about three films that have grossed over Rs 50 crore with Shah Rukh Khan's Om Shanti Om crossing over Rs 50 crore within a short span of one month," an industry source said.