Six years after selling UTV, Ronnie Screwvala dons the producer's hat

This time around, Screwvala is going by the philosophy of small is big, and is focusing on creating cross-platform content

After a hiatus of six years, Ronnie Screwvala is back donning the producer’s hat with his new creative production house RSVP. The media veteran, who set up the UTV Group back in the early 90’s and later sold it off to The Walt Disney Company in 2012, considers the new venture fulfilling a ‘creatively unfinished business’ and wants to flip the model from his last outing as a producer.

This means staying away from the studio model, big teams, or feeling the need to enter co-productions. “This time, I want to do things differently. Last time around, there was a compulsion to scale up. That was the need of the hour. This time, I have the liberty to say 'no' more often than 'yes' and I intend to (make the most of it). This time the goal is to create original content. Also, the last time, film production was the core of the business. Now, it has around 20 per cent of my attention, with Swades, Upgrad and sports taking up the rest of my time,” he explains.

The sharp focus on originating content from scratch is what Screwvala believes would keep RSVP muted on the co-production front. Not that he is ruling them out, but the first preference would be taking full ownership of the creative process. He wants to shift the focus on building director relationships (as a production house), rather than churning content like a factory. In fact, apart from feeling that he had unfinished creative business, the changing landscape of content consumption in the country was another reason that tempted Screwvala back into the film business.

“The narrative and audiences have changed a lot in the last six years. I feel the scope for storytelling is immense right now with new platforms and evolved audience tastes. There is a perfect balance of content, realism and entertainment that is in demand, and it’s a great time to be telling stories I believe,” he says.

RSVP has already released its first film – Love Per Square Foot, though the company took a different route to launch its product. Instead of a traditional theatrical release, the film was launched on content streaming platform Netflix. The next offering from the production house – Lust Stories would also be housed in Netflix from June 15. The future releases, however, would see theatrical exposure in India and overseas.

“It wasn’t by design that the first two films we made went to Netflix. Once the products were ready and we started talks (with distributors and platforms), Netflix was the fastest to respond and seal the deal. And frankly, the response to Love Per Square Foot has been great. Come to think of it, the film has reached more people than it would have through a theatrical release, since getting an international release for it would have been very tough. But now, Netflix users in all the 190 countries the platform is present in, have access to it and are potential viewers,” Screwvala says.

He adds that there is a mindset issue when it comes to releasing movies or content on digital first. He believes it does not have to be an either/or situation. However, since the industry is burdened with legacy issues and pressures to fill halls, especially on the film exhibition front, experimenting with distribution models remains a challenge. “Exhibitors are dinosaurs living in a time warp,” says Screwvala while explaining the challenges in movie distribution.

In terms of the kind of movies RSVP intends to make, they fall into three categories -– stories that RSVP wants to tell, stories that need to be told and stories that bring audiences to the movie halls. His team of eight people is currently working on multiple projects ranging from biopics to scripts that have the scope to become franchises.

The movies made by RSVP would fall in the small to medium-budget categories, starting at Rs 150 million, and going up to Rs 750 million. However, Screwvala is not averse to spending money on a project that truly deserves it. His production company currently holds the rights to the life stories of personalities like Sam Manekshaw and Ram Jethmalani.