100 crore club good sign for Indian cinema: Subhash Ghai

The '100 crore rupee club' formed by the blockbuster Indian films indicates the expansion of cinemas and benefits the industry at large, feels director-producer Subhash Ghai.
"As far as these 100 crores, 200 crores and 300 crores (are concerned), this is the expansion of business model," Ghai said at a Singapore forum on 'Changing Films. Filming Change: Cinema as a social change maker'.
"But the good part is now a days we are having these multiplexes and there is a space for every kind of cinema," he said last evening at the forum organized by the Institute of South Asian Studies here in partnership with the second Bengali International Film Festival 2013.

Ghai also noted that people have accepted films as normal part of life unlike in the 1960s and 1970s. People have more choices of cinema and are paying for it.
The '100 Crore Club' films were putting in more investment in the industry and benefiting smaller range films, noted Srijit Mukherji, filmmaker, actor and writer in Bengali films.
He pointed out that there were cross-subsidization in the industry from films that scored very heavily at the box office and invested on facilities and equipment in film laboratories which benefited the lower-range films.

"So in a sense 'Chennai Express' or 'Dabangg' has cross subsidized other films," said Mukherji who has three films to his credit and a number of awards.

"For all the 'Chennai Expresses' of the world, I am personally delighted. I am very happy that this 100 crore club is formed and we keep on churning these films over and over again," he said, referring to Shah Rukh Khan's Chennai Express which was collected some 250 crore rupee at the box office.
"I am very happy with that and I don't think there is any clash or conflict. I think it is perfectly harmonious situation," said Mukherji.