The two icons of bollywood, together!

Recently, Shahrukh “King” Khan was asked whether he and Aamir Khan had finally patched up- probably for the umpteenth time by the press.  Shahrukh in his typical style replied, “Any more patch ups would lead to a marriage! with Aamir!” But why did this patchup happen in the first place? The following article answers that question and more…

For a typical Bollywood buff, the summer of 2009 has been quite dissappointing. First of all the summer heat is in full flow and secondly no new movies are being released! Millions of movie buffs have been passing the summers for the past many years going to multiplexes, sitting in airconditioned movie halls, watching summer blockbusters of both Bollywood and Hollywood. This year however is different with the Multiplex-Bollywood Producers strike ruining everything.

“We were not getting our fair share,” UTV Motion Pictures chief executive Siddharth Roy Kapur said in an interview Friday from the Associated Press.Producers have asked for more timely and transparent payments and demanded a standard 50:50 after-tax revenue sharing agreement. During Tuesday’s talks, they retreated, saying they’d accept 45 percent in the second week, and 40 percent thereafter, Kapur said

Now let us understand the producers’ side. Essentially, they are demanding a bigger share of profits. Today there are 2 kinds of producers in Bollywood – for simplicity let us classify them as Small producers and Big producers. While big producers can deal with multiplex owners effectively, (infact that relationship is delved into deeply later), the small producers are arm twisted by the Multiplex owners for bigger chunks of profits. The producers’ Association – of which the two Khans are members, is protesting against this and are demanding equitable profit sharing for all producers. This demand is perfect on the face of it.

However, idealism and pragmatism are two different issues. The above argument would have held provided the performance of films was average for more than 60% of films. However, in reality 85-90% films are a loss for multiplex owners. Now, when big producers like Yash Raj armtwist the Multiplex owners for bigger share of profits and churn out duds like Tara Rum Pum or some other flops, its a huge loss for the multiplex owners.To quote Mr. Shravan Shroff, MD, Fame India,

Fifty percent revenue sharing does not work for us. We have proposed to pay more on the basis of a film’s performance. If the film does well, the share can go upto 50 percent. If the film flops, we need to go below the threshold. The ratio cannot always be the same. But producers don’t agree with this.

Clearly, its a game theory problem and with huge egos and corporates involved on both sides of the game, the whole thing has become a deadlock!

However, who is suffering in this? Its the small producer only! They are not able to release films and interest costs are growing by the hour… Its sad to say, but whenever an industry conflict happens, its the ‘common man’ of that industry who suffers!

Until the next time, keep StratIn!

Source: Rediff

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