Editorial on corporatisation of Bollywood, DNA

The face of mainstream Indian cinema is changing rapidly. Corporatisation is fundamentally transforming the way the film industry operates and this is directly impacting revenues and profitability. Hrithik Roshan’s much talked about Rs 35 crore, three-film deal with Adlabs is bound to pave the way for others. Since top-drawer stars often take home upto 10 per cent of a film’s budget, it heralds the era of the Rs 100 crore film.

Economic liberalisation and a growing middle class hungry for entertainment is the ballast of the entertainment boom, and this year has been a particularly successful spell for Bollywood. While corporatisation has meant greater accountability and transparency, completion bonds and insurance, and its concomitants have ensured that films stay within budget and schedule. There are fears that Bollywood’s pursuit of the Hollywood model of star-driven cinema may mean stars get to lord it over the director and story, and this may set off an unhealthy trend. The truth is, stars dictated terms to directors even at the heyday of mainstream Indian cinema in the ‘60s, but it did not necessarily spell doom.

As corporates turn out a palette of films of differing budgets, directors and stars, their chances of losses are minimised, making it easier to secure institutional finance. As in many other industries, a shakeout is perhaps inevitable. The larger corporates are able to make deals forking out large prices for stars, as well as multi-starrers, which are seen to be safer than solo-starrers, so the smaller producers are being squeezed out of the market.

On the upside, the insatiable hunger of multiplexes will keep the industry fuelled for some time to come. But along with Yash Chopra and Karan Johar multi-starrers, there is also room for the theatrical release of films, even in Bombay, by directors like Goutam Ghose, Rajeev Menon and Madhusree Dutta. Also, theatrical sales today contribute barely 30-40 per cent of a film’s earnings, with others revenue streams expanding rapidly, including cable, home entertainment, music, overseas, internet, mobile, gaming and others. Increasingly, the idea is to carpet bomb the theatres with a massive number of prints, so the film recovers its money in the first weekend, even before word of mouth has had a chance to spread. This cannot be very healthy from the creative viewpoint, yet the mainstream market is seeing such a boom, most producers are laughing all the way to their next films.