A new threat on B Town's door

GROUND ZERO

NEW VISTAS IN PHANTASMAGORIA

Knock, knock, who is there? Pralay...eh, sorry, who? Pralay KiShuruaat. Woh kaun hai? Commonly and popularly known as the Hollywoodgangbuster hit film 2012. The English, Hindi, Tamil and Teluguversions of Pralay garnered an astounding Rs 26 crore and changeduring its run on the Indian boxoffice. And if you thought that was a staggering number, Avatar came ablew the B.O right out of the water. Avatar in its first two weeks hasclocked Rs 56 crore and counting. So, while we are jumping with joythat 3 Idiots is blazing new trails (Rs 250 crore) in B.O history, BTown should beworried with what three Holywood movies have managed to achieve in2009. In fact, Avatar continues to make money hand over fist and isarguably the biggest Hollywood box office busting film ever in India.The new entertainment moguls who have a garrotte like grip on B Townthese days - Reliance Big Entertainment, UTV and Eros Internationalalong with new players like Fox Star Studios and existing badshahsYashRaj Films, Karan Johar's Dharma Production need to examine thisnew threat perpcept which is practically creeping in from theirblindside. In many ways, if this trend continues, then thetrapdoor will fall open under them. So, content will remain thedifferentiator and I guess maybe that is why Hindi cinema chappieshave understood that they need to evolve with the changing times. Themultiplex is by far the biggest game changer as far as revenuecollections go. If Hindi flicks now have opening weekends, then it isprimarily due to the emergence of the multiplex.
The stupendous success of The Hangover, 2012 and Avatar is aneye opener for Hindi cinema wallahs. If Avatar has box officecollections of Rs 56 crore and counting , then that is Rs 56 crorefrom the same single screen and multiplex gene pool that Hindi filmsused to own once. The pool though growing now has new participants.And if Hollywood continues to delivers these kind of kicka*** moviesreplete with state of the art FX which connect with the neo Indianpalate, then Bollywood better improve itself. Cameron's Avatar wasreleased by Fox Star Studios in India andit is ironical that it has surpassed the biggest Hollywood grosser inIndia - Titanic's - success in India. A bigger irony is that the sameman Cameron helmed Titanic as well. Till date, trade data shows thatAvatar has grossed Rs 56 crore in India in less than two weeks, andhas thereby broken Titanic's record as the highest grosser for 20thCentury Fox in India. With an opening weekend collection of Rs 22crore, Avatar roared past Wake Up Sid, Paa, All The Best, Kaminey,Rocket Singh and other Hindi films. The sci fi optical candy has seenthe hoi polloi land up at the multiplexes and single screens indroves. The phenomenon has spread far and wide to smaller towns wherethe Hindi, Tamil and Telugu versions have been lapped up. And unlikeits sibling Pralay, Avatar didn't even need to be renamed for itsoriginal English name was an 'Indian' one. Whoa, confused?
Generally speaking it was a good year for Hollywood in India. Other thanthe three smash hits; Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, HarryPotter and the Half Blood Prince, Angels & Demons, Twilight whichopened in the same week as Shimit Amin's much hyped Rocket Singh andgot a much better opening, Star Trek, Inglourious Basterds andPixair's Up all did well in India in 2009. The Hangover was a smash hitin multiplexes in urban agglomerates in Delhi and Mumbai. But torewind a bit, Titanic released in India in 1997 and did business tothe tune of Rs 55 crore.Alongwith Spiderman 3 and 2009 blockbuster 2012, Titanic was one ofthe three biggest films of all time in India. Fox Star Studios, IndiaCEO Vijay Singh said, "Avatar has broken all major records in Indiaand across the globe and is now the biggest film ever for TwentiethCentury Fox in India. Despite being in the second week, thecollections are only getting stronger and the numberof prints is actually increasing in several parts of the country. Weare thankful to the audiences and our partners for their support &enthusiasm towards Avatar."
The movie earned Rs 1 crore through its paid previews across India;the highest for any Hollywood film in India. It grossed Rs 6.7 croreson the opening day itself making it the biggest ever Friday openingfor any Hollywood film in India. In its opening week, Avatar did aphenomenal Rs 40 crore. And Hollywood is sweeping all before it. Iread somewhere that a publicist says the Hollywood disaster movie“2012″ has become China’s best-selling movie in history. A spokesmanfor state-owned film importer China Film Group told The AssociatedPress that “2012″ has made 460 million Chinese yuan ($67.3 million) asof Dec. 23, eclipsing the previous mark of 450 million yuan set byanother Hollywood blockbuster, “Transformers: Revenge ofthe Fallen.” Weng Li also said in third place is the Chinesepropaganda movie, “TheFounding of a Republic,” also released earlier this year.
Avatar was Cameron all the way and backed by the phantasmagoric visualeffects, it had to deliver. And it did, big time. 2012 or Pralay KiShuruaat (dubbed from the English film 2012) though was the sleeper, asurprise package. Again something that I picked up on the net...Forthe price at which its distribution rights were sold to distributors,it yielded revenues which doubled their investments and, in somecases, gave even more profits. Slumdog Crorepati, the dubbed Hindiversion of the Hollywood film, Slumdog Millionaire, released in thefirst month of 2009, also made money but the profits in 2012… were fargreater. Another Hollywood movie, Avatar (dubbed from the English filmof the same name), came in the last month of the year but its businesswas also not as en­couraging Just too see how well 2012 performedcheck out some of the numbers from the English and Hindi (dubbed)versions. 2012 in English collected Rs 3.25 crore from Bombay, Rs 80lakh from Pune, Rs 1.25 crore from Delhi city, Rs 45 lakh from Noidaand Rs 50 lakh fromKolkata. The Hindi version PRALAY KI SHURUAAT collected Rs 1.40 crorefrom Bombay, Rs 1.15 crore from Ahmedabad, Rs 71 lakh from Pune, Rs 90 lakhfrom Delhi city, Rs 70 lakh from Kolkata and Rs 40 lakh from Nagpur. Inits opening week 2012 had already been declared a super-hit nettingaround Rs 25 crore from India (English plus dubbed). All told itcollected in excess of Rs 26,87,00,000. Yes, those numbers denote acrore.
To try and understand the phenomenon of Avatar, I trawled the internetand finally stopped at this story on rediff.com. A wire feedsaid that James Cameron, the man behind the unstoppable sci-fi hit Avatar, andSandra Bullock, the co-producer and star of The Blind Sidemade history on Sunday evening. While Avatar flew beyond expectationsand reached the $1 billion milestone worldwide, the feel-good Bullockfilm -- which cost one tenth of the $300 million producing cost ofAvatar -- passed the $200 million mark in North America. This is thefirst such milestone for the actress. It is headed for a $230 milliontotal gross in NorthAmerica. The football-themed drama is about a white family whichencourages a young black man to get out of the harm's way and realisehis potential.
Movie experts expected Avatar to reach the $1 billion mark butcertainly not in just three weeks. Even hugely successful films likeThe Dark Knight, which cost over $200 million, took overthree months to recover the basic production cost.Avatar has rushed past the biggest hit of 2009, Harry Potter andHalf-Blood Prince, which grossed a formidable $930 millionworldwide.
Repeat business for Avatar is so strong that distributor 20th CenturyFox believes that many are seeing it for the third or fourth time.A Fox spokesperson declared the film is like an unstoppable 'freighttrain.' Except that the film is not creating any wreckage. It made $68million over the weekend in North America and a mammoth $132 millionabroad. Avatar is expected to get major Oscar nominations, as well asin the the technical departments.
Its total gross reached to $352 million in North America, and $670million in foreign territories by Sunday evening, according to Fox.The film opened on Friday in China, which is emerging as a majorterritory for Hollywood blockbusters like 2012.
Avatar ranks number four among the top global grossers of all time,behind Cameron's Titanic ($1.84 billion), Peter Jackson'sThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.12 billion) and GoreVerbinski's The Pirates of the Caribbean [ Images ]: Dead Man's Chest($1.07 billion). By next weekend, it would be at second spot. Thefifth film to gross $1 billion is Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.
When the ancillary income -- Blu-ray Discs and DVD, TV and Cable TV -- is factored it, Avatar could make more than $600 million in profit.Sandra Bullock, who had remained luckless for several years, suddenlybounced back last year. Three of her 2009 releases grossed over $500million in America. Of these, The Proposal grossed about $164 millionin North America (and over $140 million abroad) but her other film,All About Steve, was a flop, earning less than $70 million worldwide.But it will recover its investment. Like in the case of the otherdurable actor Clint Eastwood, Bullock's movies are alsomade in the moderate range of $35-$50 million.
Sherlock Holmes and Squeakquel are both heading for a $200 milliongross, with much more to come from the international markets.It's Complicated has been appealing to older women, and is holdingsteady. It is expected to end its American run with $100 million. Thecomedy, starring Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and AlecBaldwin, is about a divorced couple finding romance onceagain.
So, while we celebrate the success of 3 Idiots and its fantastic sliceof life homily, let us understand that B Town doesn't hold a candle toH Town. There is helluva lot to do for our cinema to get to the nextlevel of competence. Meanwhile, H Town is making deep and rapidinroads into our box office ticket counters. Yes, beware the predator,sorry avatar is at our door. Actually he already has a toe in ourdoor. Good solid scripts, better screenplays will become the norm in BTown with this new threat percept's emergence. Budgets too will haveto be ramped up. At the very kernel will have to be better packaging,special effects and technology inputs; if we are to deal with this newmeance. B Town needs to take this new threat seriously for if theaudineces in urban centres flock to watch the English versions, thesheer scale of grandeur that a movie like Avatar's visuals providewill rope in the masses in tier 2 and teir 3 towns. Surprisingly,Tamil and Telegu and Hindi are the most popular dubbed versions inIndia. Perhaps that is why SRK is investing in his version of a sci fithriller Ra 1 while Tips has Vivek Oberoi donning a Matrix like avatarin Prince It's Showtime. B Town needs to leverage its intellectualsoft power to create cinema which is watched if it is to combat theunceasing waves of avatars.