Recession Impact: Lights, camera, but no action in Tollywood

By M H Ahssan

For long, it was a money-spinning polychromatic business. Now, it is monochromatic - red that is. With a funds crunch exacerbated by recession, Tollywood is only turning a deeper red.

Of course, it’s not a straight story and here are the suspense shatterers. More than 600 Telugu films made at an estimated cost of Rs 1,200 crore are just lying in the cans. While about 500 of them have been made in the last three to four years, at least 100 were made this year alone.

Mahesh Babu, who reportedly quotes a whopping Rs 10 crore per movie as remuneration is being ignored. Reason? Producers are reluctant to sign him for what he claims he is worth.

Nearly 50 films that got censor clearance this year have not made it to the theatres because there are no buyers. So, an estimated Rs 150 crore has gone down the drain.

While show bells are ringing in theatres, they are turning out to be alarm bells as audiences have dwindled by 40 per cent. Again the culprit is the economic slowdown with families prefering not to spend on watching movies in a theatre.
“Fewer movie-goers will mean death-knell for theatres as they might have to be closed down. At least 300-400 theatres in the state are under this threat,” rued K Rama Subba Reddy, vice-president, A P Film Chamber of Commerce.

There’s more. There are nearly 1,850 theatres across the state. A glimmer of hope was when recently corporates evinced interest in taking over the theatres on lease and rental basis by paying a fixed amount. “That process has also slowed down because it has to make business sense to the corporates,” an exhibitor said.
Also, big heroes who ch a r g e crores of rupees as remuneration are under pressure to cut down their rates. For instance, a wellknown producer who signed a hero by paying him an advance is now having second thoughts. The producer wants the hero to cut his remuneration by at least Rs 2-3 crore.

Even Balakrishna, who has been a big star does not have producers flocking to him unlike earlier owing to his foray into politics.

Like any industry, when down, they rush to the government to bail them out. At the Nandi Awards ceremony last month, chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy had announced that the upper class tickets could be priced up to Rs 50 from the present Rs 35 or Rs 40 that could draw more viewers into the theatres. But that is yet to happen.

“The situation is bad for the industry. The state government is also yet to issue a GO on increasing the ticket rates,” said M Vijayender Reddy, secretary of the film chamber.

Being a ‘creative’ industry, a new idea is doing the rounds to tide over the rough patch. Under this, films will be made on ‘cooperative’ basis wherein the hero, heroine, director and music director will not be paid any fixed remuneration. Instead, “Only the profits will have to be shared as per an agreed percentage. We are discussing this proposal informally,” said film chamber’s Rama Subba Reddy. The proposal was also discussed informally with members of the Movie Artistes Association (MAA).

Will it ‘cut’? If it does, one can see that on the silver screen, otherwise it will end up as wasted raw film.