Thanks to films like the Baahubali franchise, RRR, Pushpa franchise, Kalki 2898 AD, and others, Telugu cinema’s overseas theatrical business has grown significantly in the last decade. Until a decade ago, Telugu movies used to do well in theatres only in North America and to some extent in the Gulf as well, but things have changed now. Australia, the UK, and a few countries in Europe, picked up well and are contributing very well to the overseas theatrical business of Telugu movies. Now, the distributors of Telugu movies command respect from the management of the theatre chains across countries, due to the exponential growth in footfalls across countries. This newfound respect is helping the distributors to secure as many theatres as possible to screen Telugu movies. Especially, in North America, the distributors are able to convince the theatre chains and are able to screen a few PAN India Telugu movies, in more than a thousand locations. It is by no means an easy task to secure a thousand locations for a regional indian film in North America but the distributors are able to do so because of the business growth over the year. Read this stat – Four(i.e. Baahubali, Kalki 2898 AD, RRR Movie, Pushpa 2: The Rule) out of the Top five grossing Indian films in North America are Telugu movies. Doesn’t the above stat say the market, Telugu movies command in North America? The situation in other overseas countries is no different. The other countries may not be contributing as much as North America but there certainly is a growth by year and with the kind of Telugu big films that are in the pipeline to release in the coming years, the market is expected to grow exponentially in other overseas countries as well.
While the growth in the market is very good news and it is certainly helping the producers to sell the Telugu movies overseas theatrical rights for heavy prices, there is something the producers and filmmakers need to know and keep in mind. The majority of the Telugu movies’ overseas theatrical business is being contributed by the ‘PREMIERES’. Based on word of mouth, people used to turn up to theatres in big numbers over the first weekend and films used to draw a good number of people in the second and third weekends as well. But the aforementioned thing is a thing of the past now. Barring a very few exceptions, the people coming to theatres during the first weekend itself came down drastically, even for the films that received positive reviews, due to the impact of OTT, piracy, etc. Unlike Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam movies, Telugu movies’ overseas theatrical run was and is still being driven by the premieres. It is very important for the distributors not to have any issues with screening premieres if they were to recover their investment. Recently, an overseas distribution company, released a public note to the producers. In the note, the company mentioned – ‘This isn’t distribution. This is torture.’ Also, it is not just them but most of the Telugu movies’ overseas distributors, feel the same. Why did the distributors feel so? It is because of the delay in delivering the content on time.
Game Changer, Daaku Maharaaj, Jack, Hari Hara Veera Mallu, Kingdom, They Call Him OG, the filmmakers of all these films this year have delayed delivering the content on time to overseas distributors. And, in Hari Hara Veera Mallu’s case, due to the postponement, the theatre chain management had to cancel the shows and refund the money to patrons who had already booked the tickets. This pattern of delivering the content late or postponing the films after overseas bookings are opened, has increased over the last two to three years and distributors are finding it very difficult to get the bookings opened without delivering the content to theatres. AMC Theatre Chain in the USA and the Cineworld theatre chain in the UK, are strictly not opening bookings anymore for premieres without the content being delivered to them. Getting the bookings opened a day before the premieres or on the premiere day is impacting the overall footfalls to the premiere shows and in turn the distributors are losing a considerable amount of revenue. Also, when the content is delivered late, the distributors use speed delivery methods to deliver the content to theatres on time. These speed delivery methods incur heavy additional costs to the distributors and are becoming an extra burden, especially when a film flops.
Fine-tuning the content as much as possible to give the best possible cinematic experience is a good thing to do by the filmmakers but they should also consider delivering the content on time. All the films for which the content was delivered late to overseas distributors this year, should have collected at least $300K to $500K more than they eventually ended up collecting, had the content been delivered on time. It is high time the filmmakers derive a plan up front to deliver the content at least a week before the release date. Otherwise, as a distributor mentioned in a public note recently, overseas Telugu movies’ distribution will become a thing of the past sooner or later.
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