Telugu Cinema : Small films. ‘Big’ Obstacles.

I’d like to cut to the chase. All of believe and agree that ‘Content in King’. Agreed. But that comes with an asterisk with a fine print below that reads ‘Marketing & Distribution is the King Maker.’ And this is applicable to all films, big & small. This means even more to a small-budget film. A lot of people might be pondering, why despite having good content many small-budget Telugu films are not making money. There are two reasons :

1)      Getting the audience to the theatre
2)      Getting enough audience to the theatre

Getting the audience to the theatre :

This is something many people might not agree. From a small-budget film, be it in Bollywood or Telugu the audience have modest expectations. A decent film with no great credentials can do well at boxoffice, if only it could convince the audience to come to the theatres.

The biggest challenge lies in getting them to the theatre.  In most cases, they have better alternatives. It could be watching a movie at home at fraction of the cost on DVD, or for free on TV. Their biggest obstacle is that a ‘big film’ too costs them the same ticket price & is vying for their money. When they have so many low-cost, high-value options why should they opt for a ‘small film’ over this? Out of sympathy that it’s being made by a small Producer? Or out of moral responsibility that they should encourage films made by new talent? The paying audience doesn’t care about these things.

Their only question they have be it a big or small film is? “Is this film worth my time and money?” Many small-budget films fail to address this basic question. If you watch the trailer of most of these films, there is nothing that creates anticipation or interest in the audience. The common man, wouldn’t have even heard the titles of nearly 50% of the 120-130 odd movies the Telugu film industry produces every year. People are not even aware of these film, forget considering to watch them.

If only using marketing or whatever trick, the filmmaker can get the audience to the theatres – chances are high they will feel satisfied. Like I said in most cases, they have modest expectations from the film. The first thing a small-budget movie should focus on is getting people to come to the theatres through whatever means – controversy, good music, sound marketing or a very saleable concept . Then half the job is done.

Getting enough audience into the theatres

This is something that’s not in the filmmaker’s hand, but is one of the prime reason why small-budget movies don’t make big money. Its not enough if the movie appeals to a really small niche. It needs to have sizeable audience to sustain its run in the theatre. But, why all this? Read on.

Most theatres in Andhra Pradesh have a seating capacity of anywhere between 500 to 1200 seats. The largest one has over 1600 seats! To attain break-even, a movie has to fill in atleast 20-25% of the seats. For a big movie, even if it doesn’t perform too well it easily fills in this kind of crowd. But imagine, in a theatre with 800 seating, for an average performing small-budget movie to pull in 250 people per show for 28 shows a week is no easy feat. Especially considering that it’s not the first choice of entertainment for people.

All this hue & cry by a section in the film industry about high rentals is because small-budget movies can’t make big money in this model where theatres are too big for small-budget films to fill up easily. Who is to be blamed for the really large theatres we have in our state?

So for a small budget film playing in an 800 capacity theatre, the Producer needs 7000 people to watch it just to attain break-even. He gets to pocket the money from the 7001^st movie goer onwards. But this is not an impossible feat. With sound marketing & decent content, a film can fill in a movie theatre enough to make decent money. We shouldn’t forget that Nuvve Kavali, Chitram, Anand, R. Narayana Murthy’s Orei Rickshaw, Mantra & many films in the industry were big money spinners despite being small-budget films. So, all these theories that the ‘system’ in Telugu film industry is designed to make small-budget films bleed always are just conspiracies.

Why high rentals?

Most of the theatres in our states were built between the 70s & 90s. Cinema was one of the few entertainment options then. People came in hordes to theatres to watch a movie. Hence the theatres made in that era were really big. But that’s slowly changing as people have alternate entertainment choices. Many people fail to understand that theatre business is part entertainment & part real-estate. The rent a theatre-owner charges is linked to the real estate value of his theatre. A theatre owner would expect the same rent from the theatre, which he would get had he given it to any other commercial activity like shopping mall or office space. For the same reason a movie hall in the prime city area would chargea higher rent than a one in the outskirts though, both of them might have the same seating capacity.

Andhra Pradesh – lowest rentals in India.

Any person in the trade would tell you Andhra Pradesh has one of the lowest rentals in the country. Much lesser than our neighbours like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & Maharashtra. Chattisgarh & Orissa probably have lesser rentals. This is despite the fact that real estate in AP has grown much faster than the inflation in ticket rates. For many theatre owners it doesn’t even make business sense to run theatres. They’d rather build a complex & lease it to office spaces. But, many of them do as it’s a prestige investment, have an emotional bond with the business or its source of soft power in the community. All these work in advantage of the film industry. If a film can’t make money in Andhra Pradesh, probably it can’t make anywhere else in the country.

Profit-sharing basis :

Some people suggest the theatre should rent out itself on ‘percentage basis’, ie : charge a % instead of a flat fee. This will be a risky proposition for the theatres. Right now, a hit or flop doesn’t have much impact on the theatre owner – as they get paid a flat rent no matter what. But, if single-screens are to run on profit-sharing basis, the theatre owners would avoid risks and opt only for big-budget film as they manage to pull crowds easily.

Why would a theatre owner want to risk & give his theatre to a small-budget film when their success rate is so low? For the one odd movie that makes money he can’t bleed for the remaining 7 or 8 films. Theatre owner don’t have any sentiment towards the cause of ‘saving small-budget films’. Its business – whatever makes money! Despite running on ‘profit-sharing’ basis, this is one of the reasons why most multiplexes in the Hyderabad don’t screen many small-budget Telugu movies.

Arrghh.. So what the solution, then?

There is no magic solution to this. Probably in the future, with newer theatres and renovations of existing ones, we should have screens with smaller seating capacity. Then the rentals would be lower & require smaller audiences to make the movie profitable. A lot of the theatres in the state are already breaking down large halls into multiple screens to offer more choice to consumers & make money with a smaller crowd. But it’s a process & will take time. It’s not a doom’s day situation either. Let me remind you even today a small-budget Telugu film can make good money, but needs to work a little harder towards it. Smaller capacity single-screens with lower rentals would only make things a little better, that’s all. So again it finally boils down to the same things : 1) Good content, backed by 2) Good marketing & distribution.