The Indian film assembly line

FILMS: The Network 18 group brings economies of scale to film-making. Will it work?

The Indian Film Company (TIFC), the film investment and IPR (intellectual property rights) company of the Network 18 group, is funding six commercial Hindi movies for Rs 100 crore. A re-make of Sai Paranjpe's Chashme-Badoor is one of them, to be directed by Onir who made My Brother Nikhil and Bas Ek Pal.

Among other directors working on projects funded by TIFC are Anurag Kashyap, Kundan Shah and Priyadarshan. "At least three of the six films will be on the floors this calendar year," says Sandeep Bhargava, CEO of TIFC.

Though the majority of the films will be produced by Studio 18, a Network 18 venture, the company has also signed a co-production deal with actor Suneil Shetty's Pop Korn Entertainment for a movie titled Loot.

TIFC, which raised over Rs 450 crore at the AIM exchange (UK) recently, has already put money into 14 projects taking the tally of films in its portfolio to 20. Skeptics feel that several studios are investing heavily in the films business and Network 18's model does not stand out.

"All major film studios today are tying up with independent directors and producing films," says Komal Nahta, editor of film trade journal Film Information.

Adlabs, for instance, has signed long-term deals with film stars like Hrithik Roshan and Akshay Kumar. Other corporate entities like Sahara Motion Pictures, Percept Picture Company and UTV are also making fresh investments in the sector which is set to touch Rs 175 billion in four years.

However, Bhargava says that most studios still make between five-eight films a year.

"We studied the Indian market and realised that individual players do not have more than seven to eight per cent market share. For us it will be a much larger game and we are targeting a 25 per cent share of the film production market." In less than two years the company intends to make at least 40 films a year.

Critics point out that, with the exception of Priyadarshan, all the directors TIFC has signed on for the new films have made only medium budget films ranging between Rs 5 crore to Rs 7 crore.

"It remains to be seen how the Rs 100 crore will be deployed among six projects," says Nahta. Bhargava points out that the Rs 100 crore will not be evenly split. "They are all hardcore commercial, Bollywood films and could cost anywhere between Rs 5 crore and Rs 50 crore."

With the boom in multiplexes, the number of screens in India is going up rapidly. The increasing demand for content will help film companies co-exist peacefully.

TIFC, meanwhile, enters into film production deals only if it retains complete ownership of intellectual property rights pertaining to various media formats such as satellite, home video or mobile technology.