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The Sivaji - Billa Model
By Behindwoods News Bureau.
December 24, 2007
Can we define success? Success differs for each one of us because each one of us has a different goal in life and success is the attainment of that goal, small or big. The dictionary calls success as the accomplishment of something planned or attempted. Every filmmaker has but one plan when he makes a movie.
Billa
To make a movie as successful as possible and success in the film industry, as in any other industry, is fuelled by money. Money is by and large a measure of the profits that can be reaped from a venture and this determines a film’s success or failure.

Times have changed vastly over the past few years and the pre-requisites for a movie to be a resounding success have undergone a metamorphosis. Quality is no longer the only determinant of a film’s business though it still remains the single largest factor. There are other factors that can influence the dynamics of a films business at the box office. This is more a reflection of the lifestyle change that the world has undergone over a period. Everything now is instant and even success has to be instant, playing the waiting game is passé and it is all out ruthless economics and market analysis that takes over once the creative process of film making is wrapped up. This is not to say that market analysis and economics were not part of film trade earlier but currently there is lot more professionalism and studied methods in which these are applied to the business to make a film a lucrative proposition. If we credit the growth of the Tamil film industry with great artistes and creators like Rajini, Kamal, Mani Ratnam and Shankar a small part of the credit should also go to men who have silently worked behind the screens playing the number games to perfection to ensure that no good effort falls flat. Welcome to the world of professional business analysis, which till recently was part of only huge corporate firms or so we thought.

The fact is that such complex calculations are still specialized domains of the corporate sector but the one thing that has changed is that the corporate sector has decided to enter films in a big way and even within a span of a few years the cutting edge calculations of the specialists have made a huge difference. Adlabs, Eros, UTV, etc., are a few fine examples with traditional production houses following suit. In short, they know what to sell, where to sell, how to sell and when to sell. The result is that the money keeps flowing. Take this for instance, Goal, the recent John Abraham-starrer, was declared a profitable venture by safe margin even before its release and how true it has turned out to be, the cost was covered and a neat if not huge profit was made. Saawariya, a film that, going by the widespread feeling, was not liked by even a fraction of the audience has earned in the proximity of Rs. 25 crores. Even though this is far below its investment, for a movie that was drubbed from every quarter possible, these numbers are truly surprising. How was this done?
Sivaji
It is simple economics, or just common sense. The demand for a product is dictated by a few factors. One they say is marginal utility, the other is the buyers’ spending capacity and of course there is the factor of availability. Let’s say that the marginal utility of watching a film in a theater is three hours of relaxed entertainment with family or friends (the quality of the entertainment is a bonus),
the spending capacity of the buyer, especially the urban buyer, is never under question in these days of urban economic boom and the last factor is availability. If these three factors come together, one can ensure that the product is sold and sold well. The corporates know how to bring these things together. During the festive season, watching a big movie in theaters with family is more a necessity or an annual ritual faithfully followed by many rather than just a marginal utility. When a product is a necessity, the willingness to pay a higher price is always there and that combined with festival bonus salaries for adults and that extra pocket money for the teens results in higher spending power coupled with availability that matches or even topples demand, you have saturation sales. You end up selling the maximum amount of the product within the shortest interval of time, reducing the time needed to recover investment, regardless of negative reviews and its impacts.

This is the simple technique that the professionals have put in place to cut the risk of movie business. Year 2007 has been a classic example of savvy marketing either saving or boosting the status of a film at the box office. Take for instance, Sivaji (there is no escaping Sivaji). The Superstar fever was capitalized on in style. For nearly a month (if you were in Chennai at that time you could have seen for yourself) there was no other movie but Sivaji showing all over Chennai, at least 90 per cent of all shows in a day in Chennai city were of Sivaji. It was estimated that 15,000 people saw the movie simultaneously throughout the city that makes it nearly 60,000 a day. Which means that no one who came hoping for tickets returned disappointed, everyone got their chance even before any of the reviews could make themselves heard, all positive though, and the movie was well on its way to blockbuster status. That explains why Abirami Ramanathan, who purchased the Chennai city distribution rights of the film, was able to manage a smile in spite of having put a mammoth Rs. 6 crores, ending up making nearly double that amount. Billa too is an excellent example of not letting availability come in between demand and sales of tickets. The Tamil movie scene was entirely taken up by Billa in its opening weekend making the most of the initial hype.
Maybe we can understand the importance of the new age marketing tactics better if we look at some of the more mediocre movies that managed to scrape through just because of this factor. Saawariya and Vijay’s Azhagiya Tamil Magan are outstanding examples of films making their ground purely because of well-planned marketing strategy. That is the contemporary business of movies.
Saawariya
Life has changed, it is fast, the shelf life of any product is low, memory spans less, slow and steady no longer wins the race, with increasing number of movies being made with big stars and bigger budgets, the window available for each movie to make good its investment is small. Every producer has to go for the kill during this short span of time. Flood the market, don’t miss a single screen is the new age mantra. These are the days when even centers that were till recently considered second change centers are being offered first day releases. More prints + more theaters = more viewers ? more money. Everybody is happy! Gone are the days when filmmakers used to wait for the 50th day to declare their film a hit, now you can hear the word ‘HIT’ after the first weekend, sometimes even before the release. Who cares for Silver and Golden jubilees? The money comes in 10 days and that’s what matters. Today is the world of instant everything, instant noodles, instant coffee, instant money and instant cricket (20-20). Why would movies have to be any different? In the midst of all this, movies tend to become instantly forgotten as well.
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