The Hindu Business Line : The hardsell of Sivaji, the Boss

Chennai June 19 The mobile phone of Mr S.C. Babu, Chief Executive Officer, AVM Studios, the producer of the blockbuster-effort Sivaji, the Boss, rings incessantly during a conversation on the movie.

A Mumbai distributor wants 17 more prints of the movie for that market, some of them to replace a recent Hindi movie release which isn't faring well at the box office.

The distributor is coming down shortly to Chennai, says Mr Babu, to give in the first `minimum guarantee' cheque (beyond which profits are shared) to AVM and collect the fresh prints.

With 800 prints and over 900 screens and more to come, Tamil moviedom's superstar Rajnikanth's ninth movie with AVM, Sivaji, the Boss, may well have changed the way films are being marketed in the country.

`Most expensive'

Though Mr Babu could not be persuaded to reveal the amount, it's given to understand that close to Rs 80 crore has gone into it - making it the most expensive Indian movie ever. Shah Rukh Khan starrer Devdas was made for Rs 52 crore.

The saturation coverage with an unprecedented number of prints and screens will also serve to hedge risks of piracy, Mr Babu explained.

Indian Overseas Bank, AVM's bankers for decades, have part-financed this movie, which is AVM's 168th. And the studio insured the key actors for Rs 50 crore. While Sivaji runs to packed houses across the country and abroad, thanks to the production house's 360-degree marketing attempts, AVM, which has spent Rs 2.5 crore so far on marketing the movie, intends to keep up the momentum with a spend of Rs 1.5 crore over the next two to three months. Mr Babu is confident it will rake in more than Rs 250 crore in collections.

A blitzkrieg of publicity through hoardings (more than two lakh sq. ft. across Tamil Nadu), bus panels (over 10,000), vinyl-poster-wrapped double-decker buses in Chennai, look-alike contests on local FM radio stations, and a steady output of pre- and post-release features by national news channels have all whipped up a frenzy of excitement.

Tie up with Web sites

Not just that, but AVM has tied up with Web sites such as galatta.com, rediff.com and behindwoods.com and mobile entertainment major Hungama Mobile to storm the Net and mobile space with content, sound tracks and ring tones downloads to market the movie, not to mention its own Web site, sivajitheboss.com.

Mr Saleem Mobhani, COO, Hungama Mobile, says this is the first-ever Tamil film to have such a wide marketing network.

downloads Galore

Hungama Mobile, which has a direct connectivity with nearly 77 carriers in over 30 countries, is overwhelmed with the number of Sivaji downloads over the month.

"In fact, our server crashed three times on the first two days thanks to chock-full dial-ins from all parts of the world," Mr Mobhani asserts.

Mr Babu also says the sound track sales made a record opening with sales of one lakh CDs and cassettes on the first day.

In fact, the sound track was released on the digital platform ahead of the CD release. The sound tracks are also available on iTunes for download.

"This is the first Tamil film that iTunes promotes globally," says Mr Mobhani of Hungama Mobile.

Access to funds

The success of Sivaji has changed for the better the way institutional financiers are looking at the film industry in general and the Tamil film industry in particular. "We have a positive feedback from institutional lenders. Sivaji will make accessing funds easier," says Mr V. Subramonian, President (Corporate Affairs), G.V. Films Ltd, a company that is both a film producer and exhibitor.

Mr Mehool Parekh of Infinity Film Completion Services Ltd, has the same views. "Sivaji has gone well with the lenders," Mr Parekh told Business Line.

Infinity guarantees the completion of films, which then makes it easier for the producers to raise funding.

Visual richness

"You can never make the perfect movie," says AVM's CEO Mr Babu, responding to a question on reviews and intrinsic virtues, "but with Sivaji, it was the visual richness we were aiming for, and we achieved it."

This may well be a movie carried along on a wave of hype and hysteria that combine superstar value, technical thrills and savvy marketing.