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Hollywood fans in small towns may no longer have to travel to nearby cities to watch the latest English flick. Cashing in on the big market for English films in B- and C-towns, PVR Ltd plans to dub the latest English releases in Hindi and other languages. Currently, these towns depend on pirated copies or TV channels to catch their favourite Hollywood stars in action.
“The English distribution business is improving as has been proved by the success of Fast and Furious . We are also pumping up our English distribution business, and one way to do that is to cater to the huge potential audience for English films outside Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore,” Mr Sanjeev Bijli, Joint Managing Director, PVR Ltd, told Business Line .
Tamil and Telugu are the other languages in which the company may dub the movies, he said.
Talkies
The company has Talkies, a low-cost model of film distribution, in Latur and Aurangabad, where tickets are priced at Rs 65. This year, it plans to set up Talkies in Nanded, Ujjain and Bilaspur. The dubbed films will be screened in these tier-3 towns and some tier-2 towns, such as Lucknow, where both English and dubbed films have a following. The company is present in Raipur, Allahabad, Baroda, Ghaziabad and Faridabad, and plans to set up screens in Surat, Udaipur, Bhopal, Mysore, and Pune this year. Dubbed films for smaller towns are a small part of its business at present, but Mr Bijli believes they have potential for growth in the future.
With rising demand for English films, the company plans to release one Hollywood film every month starting this year. With the Three Musketeers (3D), Breaking Down from the Twilight Series, Bellamy (French), Daniel Radcliffe-starrer Woman in Black (a horror film in 3D) and an Ann-Hathaway film, PVR hopes to keep the audiences glued.
While Khele Hum Jee Jaan se , produced by the company, resulted in big losses last year, Aisha did fairly well, said Mr Bijli. This year, the company is producing Shanghai , directed by Dibakar Banerjee. Riding on the 3D bandwagon, PVR plans to ensure that each property has at least two to three 3D screens. At present, it has 33 properties and plans to add 10 more this year, which will take up the number of screens by 50 this year.
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