Talking Business

A NO-WIN SITUATION
The non-descript opening response to the Sanjay Dutt starrer Khauff has proved to be a disappointment for all those exhibitors in the trade, who paid a fancy price to acquire the film for their theatres. Some of them reportedly paid an MG (minimum guarantee paid to acquire a film) as high as Rs 2 lakhs to acquire the film, considering that there is no other release in the next few weeks right upto March 21, the date of release of Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge. The highest MG however is reported to have been paid by an exhibitor who controls a theatre in Juhu and wanted to acquire the film at any cost for his theatre. Most exhibitors were also encouraged by Sanjay Dutt’s new-found market value which has shot up after the success of Vaastav and Khoobsurat, followed by the best actor award status accorded to him recently. According to the secretary of the TOA (Theatre Owners Association), Nester D’Souza, irrespective of the anticipation for the film, it was a no-win situation for exhibitors who acquired the film, since a new film is any day better than a repeat run film, with themarket for repeat runs being zero today.

D’Souza himself is content continuing with Hey! Ram which he says continues to draw a moderate percentage of the gentry audience. Meanwhile, the Mumbai distributor of Khauff, Inder Raj Kapoor (IRK Enterprises) is having his last laugh, after the sizeable table-profit he earned with the release of the film, thanks to the price he got from keen exhibitors. To further cash in on the anticipation amongst exhibitors, Kapoor released the film with a number of extra prints in Mumbai, though the film was earlier planned for release in only a few theatres. The result was that two three theatres in one area were screening the same film.

BACK IN THE NEWS
Another distributor who has reportedly got very good terms for the film from exhibitors is Dilip Dhanwani of Dilsa Enterprises who acquired the film for Gujarat, Saurashtra and Karnataka. These days, Dhanwani is back in the news with all the right films he is acquiring for the right territories. According to him, the decisions are paying off, because he insists on watching the film before investing in it, but he admits to having a special interest in Sanjay Dutt and Govinda starrers. “Sanjay has got an excellent market potential at the moment. That’s one of the reasons I have acquired Jung and Baaghi, both Sanjay starrers,” Dhanwani revealed.

INVESTORS ARE CAUTIOUS
Even as exhibitors try hard to keep their theatres going, there is also a general sense of insecurity in the production sector, with financiers getting increasingly cautious about investing in projects. At the moment there are several financiers like PK Aggarwal, Ashok Mundhra, Deepak Mehra and N Kumar who are being approached with promising proposals from producers but are sceptical about investing in them. According to financier Dinesh Gandhi, who had spoken to SCREEN about his disillusionment with the industry, the financiers are sandwiched between the producers and distributors and are getting very little returns on their investments these days. “The problem is that the money which is going into the industry is just not coming back by way of returns. The artistes and technicians are getting their price, which is not quite re-invested in the industry, while the producers of big films are getting their price too. The distributors look forward to the financier to rescue them at the last minute, which the financier does, just to release the finance blocked in a film, but this cannot go on indefinitely,” Gandhi argues.

He has got atleast ten proposals in the past few days from producers, but he has refused all of them, “simply because the scenario is very bad, with a majority of highly budgeted films failing at the box office.” There is of course one project on which he is working at the moment, which seems to be immensely promising.

The only financier who seems to be unaffected by the scenario, despite the fact that a majority of films presented by him have not really done well, is Bharat Shah. He is sitting cool despite the fact that Mela, Pukaar (average response) and the more recent Hey! Ram drew a disappointing response at the box office.

A MINI AT KANJUR MARG
Meanwhile, the concept of mini-theatres seems to be gathering momentum, even in the most unexpected places, with more exhibitors going for them. The next few weeks will see a brand new 170-seater theatre by the name of Heena coming up at the remote, little known, Kanjhur Marg, with state-of-the-art technology. The theatre has been built in place of two theatres, Uma and Neena, (with a capacity of 1000 and 500 seats respectively) which were demolished to make way for Heena. The theatre is being controlled by Hemant Shah of Tilak Enterprises who was controlling the two theatres at the same place earlier. According to Shah, Heena is likely to get an excellent patronage, since there is no other theatre in the surrounding areas of Kanjur Marg, Vikhroli and Powai. In all probability the theatre is likely to open with the release of Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge, though according to Shah, it all depends on the licensing process, which takes its own course of time. There was a time when Hemant’s father, Tilak Shah used to control as many as 50 theatres in Maharashtra, but of late they have substantially cut down their exhibition business, after the entry of big players like Shringar and VIP in teh market.

Manisha Deshpande