Big, glitzy production houses are investing in small, gritty films with big potential.
Vikas Bahl, executive vice president and creative director, not only has power over funds for movies produced by UTV SpotBoy but also shoulders the blame for any flops that come out from the production house. It was his instinct that made him bet on Raj Kumar Gupta’s vision leading to the critically acclaimed film Aamir.
“We could have made Aamir at a lower budget but I knew that the film needed a certain look and designing,” he adds. With no background in the entertainment industry, when did people like Bahl gain such powerful positions? Shoestring budgets, directors in desperate need to showcase their creative talent, actors looking to convey a certain image, hard-hitting marketing — in short, everything that was considered pariah in Bollywood a few years ago is now the fresh way of doing business.
Bahl (read UTV SpotBoy) has signed a blank cheque to produce Indrajit Nattoji’s Aagey Se Right, a story about a cop who has lost his gun, which was discussed over a SMS. It is not just Bahl’s whim, but experts say it’s a de-risking strategy adopted by production houses to ensure the inflow of new talent. They are also using high-content “art” films as a gateway to the international awards scene and markets beyond non-resident Indians.
The urban myth that the big boys in Bollywood only produce films with high production costs and glitzy sets, instead of really hardcore, gut-level cinema, now stands shattered. For starters, Subhash Ghai’s Mukta Arts has two divisions — Mukta Searchlight Films, which handles small-budget but creative films, and Malpix Films, which launched its first Marathi film, Kaande Pohe.
UTV Motion Pictures has SpotBoy Motion Pictures and UTV Classics, while Percept Picture recently set up Cause Cinema, which will look at projects with socially relevant themes as well as corporate films. Kabul Express was Yash Raj Films’ first film for an international audience — a new foray into this segment of filmmaking, with many more to come, and its last year’s release Chak De! India managed a global collection of above Rs 125 crore.
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Why does every big film corporation in B-town want a sub-brand, one wonders. Bahl has an answer, “A sub-brand does not depend on Bollywood’s big stars, instead it evolves on talent and creative content that cannot be showcased in a typical masala Hindi flick.” The “small” film phenomenon has undergone a definitive transformation in its journey towards greater acceptance. Naveen Pandey, director-writer of A Wednesday, which was released under the UTV SpotBoy umbrella, believes that “The urban Indian audience has opened up to cinema that determinedly focuses on middle-class urban issues, addressing them in their own language.”
The economics are working out too. According to Rahul Merchant, associate vice president (business development) of P9 Integrated, which has a separate unit, P9 Searchlight, for marketing small budget films: “Small-budget movies or a film without a star cast have been increasingly spending more on marketing intelligently to audiences, thanks to the financial might of a bigger production house that understands the system.”
A film made on a budget of Rs 2 crore can easily cost an equal amount in promotion, he reveals. UTV SpotBoy’s Bahl observes, “Most of our small-budget movies have recovered their investment, either through the box office or through sales of satellite rights, and a few also earn up to 50 per cent of the original investments making decent profits for the production house.”
Merchant reckons that Bollywood is merely emulating a proven sub-branding routine. “When the audience sees a film that has the logo of Fox Searchlight, Mukta Searchlight or UTV SpotBoy for that matter, they know what to expect. For instance, Mira Nair’s Namesake, made under the Fox Searchlight/UTV banner, or Black and White, made by Mukta Searchlight. It helps in attracting the target audience.”
Meanwhile, the stakes are indeed getting higher. Sagar Bellary made his first film, Bheja Fry, for Rs 60 lakh, and it went on to make Rs 12 crore at the box office. He is on to his next film, Kachcha Limboo, with Sahara, at a budget of Rs 5 crore.
Sujoy Ghosh, whose second film Home Delivery was a spectacular failure, is now directing Aladdin with a budget of Rs 60 crore for Eros. Vivek Agnihotri, director of box-office second-rates Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal and Chocolate, is sitting pretty with a Rs 3.5 crore contract from Reliance.
Pritish Nandy is having the last laugh. The filmmaker, who began making small-budgeted movies back in 2000, recalls people making fun of the idea. “Today multiplex cinema is not small cinema. Multiplex cinema can be big, small, funny, thrilling, innovative, arty. It can be anything. The only issue is the grammar. The grammar of multiplex cinema is urban, today, hip and contemporary. It doesn’t depend on big stars or big budgets or foreign locations,” Nandy reflects.
Nandy’s Guerrilla Flicks was recently floated to facilitate young creative talent and experiment with concept-based cinema. Having collaborated with directors like Saket Chaudhary in Pyaar Ke Side Effects and Sudhir Mishra in Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi, Nandy is now busy producing 12 films with budgets ranging from Rs 5 crore and Rs 30 crore.
“These are films we would be proud to have made,” he says. “Not for the money they collect at the box office but for their persuasive skills in changing audience taste and bringing younger audiences back to the theatre.”
