The Hindu Business Line : <i>Lagey Raho</i>, Bollywood!

Shaad Ali Sehgal doesn't want to talk to the media. He answers his cell phone to say so, and then spends some time talking about inspiration and childhood memories and the success of Bunty Aur Babli, his second directorial venture. The film opened to smash hit collection, and is still playing in many theatres, making it the nearest the industry has had to a universal hit in recent times. "My movie is doing all the talking," he says.

So it is. The director never set out to make a film to please `certain sections', he says. It is a universal film which makes everyone happy. The figures bear him out and are surely making the production house very happy too. For a Rs 18-crore movie, Yashraj Films has already touched the Rs 40-crore mark, and the money is still coming in (all figures are industry estimates).

Bollywood is smiling, on the whole. The year 2005 is turning out to be a very good one, with eight certified successes at the half-year mark. It opened with Madhur Bhandarkar's ultra-low-budget Page 3.

The Rs 2-crore film, meant to be a critique of the page 3 culture, ended up making Rs 8-9 crore. Black, Sanjay Leela Bhansali's ode to disability and Rani Mukherji's acting ability, was made for about Rs 20 crore. It got back, for producer Applause Entertainment, Rs 28 crore.

The next couple of months saw the excessively weepy family drama Waqt, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Akshay Kumar, get a `fantastic opening overseas' and a good domestic run; the `risqué comedy' Kya Kool Hain Hum has already raked in Rs 10 crore for its Rs 1 crore spend by producer Ekta Kapoor; Karan Johar, dabbling with his first action-adventure Kaal, broke all records for an opening weekend (all India collection estimated at Rs 8 crore for the first three days); and Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Parineeta, made for Rs 25 crore, has done `reasonably well', according to Sanjeev Mehta, Vice-President, UTV Motion Pictures. A few weeks ago, Ram Gopal Varma's continuation of his mafia saga, Sarkar, managed a great opening in Mumbai, with Delhi-UP coming in a close second. So did two other films — Dus, an actioner, and Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya, a typical David Dhawan romp.

Compared to the drought in the first half of the decade, 2005 is proving to be a bonanza. "This has been a year of unexpected successes. Every two weeks, we've had a good movie releasing and also doing well," says Mehta, "which is why we are seeing a bigger percentage of hits."

He cites a couple of instances that support his statement. Varma's Sarkar, which got Amitabh and Abhishek together as shared equity for the second time after Bunty Aur Babli, has had the biggest opening in, of all places, Mysore, with a collection of Rs 30-35 lakh. Also, the UTV-distributed Kya Kool Hain Hum will end up making between Rs 12-14 crore, which is 40 per cent more than expected. It all adds up, he says, to audiences becoming more confident of getting into theatres.

The success formula

So what's Bollywood doing right this year? New-Delhi based exhibitor-distributor Aditya Khanna, who calls it a `sea change', puts it down to three factors: costing is coming under tight control, films are being targeted very sharply, and marketing has become very fine-tuned and focused. "The days of hit and trial are over," he says.

"Producers have realised the value of spending time on planning and pre-production, so cost spillovers are being eliminated, resulting in distributors getting movies at a rational price. All of which is resulting in the most important thing — costs being recouped faster."

Khanna uses Kaal as an example; it took just seven days to break even. "Till now, it's all been advertising. Now we are starting to market. Look at the way Kaal sold its casting and closing song as a major USP to a largely youthful, metro-based audience." He talks about Page 3, a huge marketing success, with its focus on a similar demographic, as well as Black. "I like the way some science has finally crept into the art of making movies," he says.

Corporatisation pays

The corporatisation of the film industry, which has been making sporadic dents into the chaos of making movies, is now starting to show results. With corporate money rolling in faster, accountability is becoming more a norm than an aberration. Old production houses like Yashraj are turning from mom-and-pop operations into organised assembly lines, with three or four movies releasing every year, instead of one every three years. Major media players such as UTV can offer producers one-stop distribution deals with national and international footprints, as well as give new directors funds and creative freedom to ideate and make movies.

The Chopras, Vidhu and Vir, who spearheaded one of the funniest, most original movies of 2003, Munnabhai MBBS, are working on the same lines, creating a spread and brand for their kind of movies. Ram Gopal Varma's The Factory is an established rollout for a film every two months, with Varma doing less and less directing, and giving over the baton to eager fresh talent.

Relatively new entrants such as Applause, IDreams, and K Sera Sera are all hardcore corporate entities, offering opportunities for co-productions and funds, driven by bottom-lines while fulfilling the primary need of the market — to create the kind of product which will impel people to come to theatres.

Shravan Shroff, Managing Director, Shringar Cinemas Ltd, among the largest exhibitors and distributors in the country, takes a macro view of the boom, based on this availability of quality content. "Everything is on an upswing, the economy, the retail segment, our image overseas... there is money in the system, which is also why the film industry is doing well," he says. "The challenge is to keep up a sustained supply of good movies and maintain our theatres."

It's the content that counts

Just as in the property segment that is all about location, the film industry is coming full circle to the conclusion that it is all about content. The trend of fleshed-out stories with strong characterisation, which used to be the hallmark of our movies before the 1970s, is returning.

Look at all the successful movies this year, and you have a clutch of movies that have tried to say things with just that degree of difference which will invite and not alienate the audience. The tone is still clearly populist, but it is no longer cowed down to pandering to the lowest common denominator.

"The story is the paramount thing for me," says Rajkumar Hirani, who wrote and directed Munnabhai MBBS, and is now busy with its sequel Lagey Raho, Munnabhai, due for release mid-2006. "The biggest question is how do you say something which has been said differently."

Hirani, who has just wrapped up the first schedule, spends the maximum time on scripting. The whole process of writing is an emotional journey, he says, which makes him laugh and cry. Which is why Munnabhai MBBS managed to do the thing that the best movies set out to do — take you over to make you laugh and cry.

The second half of the year looks promising too with an exciting line-up of movies... The most awaited Bobby Bedi production of The Rising, starring Aamir Khan and Rani Mukherji, has already hit theatres.

The film has had an exceptional opening, say industry sources. A couple of weeks from now, another movie — Salaam Namaste, starring Preity Zinta and Saif Ali Khan — will roll out from the Yashraj stable.

For an industry which has had to get by with a handful of hits in the past five years, with only one or two really big ones, and the rest scraping the middling or average mark, this year's buoyant performance is a huge relief.

The two really big blocks to an all-out party are the menace of piracy, which comes from individuals, and the excessive entertainment tax, which comes from the government. But despite these dampeners, the show goes on, and the money's rolling in.

Let the good times roll.

Picture by Mohammed Yousuf

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