There’s a clash of new film releases almost every week nowadays. And quite understandably so! After all, there’s a huge backlog of films ready for release because of the two Coronavirus pandemic-induced lockdowns. Sometimes, it’s two Bollywood films pitted against one another in the same week. At other times, it is a Bollywood film released in direct opposition of a Hollywood film.
We had Sooryavanshi hitting the screens on Diwali this year alongside Hollywood’s Eternals. On 26th November, there were Antim and Satyameva Jayate 2 (which opened a day earlier, on 25th). Again, this week, it’s a clash between Bollywood’s Tadap and Hollywood’s Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City.
These face-offs have led to a terrible situation, with the distributors of the films releasing in the same week making life hell for the exhibitors. Obviously, each distributor wants his film to get the maximum number of and the best shows. For, every distributor thinks, he is releasing a hit film. Of course, distributors are entitled to think so, but when the demands of these distributors become crazy, the exhibitors have to go through hell.
Zee, the distributor of last week’s Antim, and AA Films, the distributor of Satyameva Jayate 2, made it an ego issue. While AA Films wanted the cinemas to give both the films an equal number of shows per day, Zee insisted that their film should get at least one show more then SJ2 where five shows are conducted! Many single-screen cinemas in U.P., which conduct five shows daily, had to actually take a decision to not conduct the shows in the morning just so that both the films got two shows each, and Zee did not feel offended. Even two-screen multiplexes had a harrowing time, pacifying Zee and AA Films. Most exhibitors are wary of winning the wrath of distributors like Zee and AA Films for fear of not getting to release their forthcoming films. Distributors can be vengeful and, from their point of view, they are justified too! After all, everything’s fair in love, war and business.
An example of vengeance was the action by Fox Star Studios for their release this week, Tadap. They told all those exhibitors, who had not screened Disney’s (Fox’s parent company) Eternals in their cinemas on Diwali, that they would now not get to screen Tadap! And just why had those exhibitors not screened Eternals? Because the distributor of Sooryavanshi (which released on the same day as Eternals) had insisted that single-screen cinemas would not be allowed to run a single show of any other film (read Eternals) if they wanted to screen Sooryavanshi in the Diwali week. Even two-screen, three-screen and four-screen multiplexes had to follow the Reliance diktat of show-sharing between Sooryavanshi and Eternals, otherwise Reliance was unwilling to screen Sooryavanshi in those multiplexes. Since Sooryavanshi was the ‘hotter’ of the two films, single-screen cinemas and multiplexes obliged Reliance Entertainment rather than Disney. So now, with Tadap, it was time for Fox to seek revenge on all those ‘erring’ exhibitors. With great difficulty and after a lot of cajoling by exhibitors, they managed to get Fox to give them Tadap for screening at their cinemas. Some cinemas were not as lucky and had to go without Tadap. Since the cajoling took days, many cinemas were confirmed for Tadap only yesterday (Thursday, December 2). With such late confirmations, the advance online booking for the film was poor. This, in turn, adversely affected the initial which the film took today. If one recalls, Sooryavanshi was also finalised in the national multiplex chains late on the night of 4th November — just a few hours before its release on 5th. Of course, the delay in the case of Sooryavanshi was because the revenue-sharing terms between the chains and Reliance took very long to be settled. How many patrons must’ve tried to book the tickets of the film for the first day but could not do so because its advance booking did not start till late Thursday night, can well be imagined. All this, obviously, affected the first day’s net box-office collections. Sooryavanshi could still manage a phenomenal first-day collection figure in spite of all the release drama, because it was a very big and eagerly awaited film. But Tadap today must’ve lost out on thousands of patrons because the plans in many cinemas opened late, very late.
Do the distributors of films realise the harm they are doing to their own films by confirming it to cinemas so late, asks a harrowed exhibitor. On the other hand, a veteran distributor says, “Doesn’t matter that the business prospects of a new film are adversely affected slightly because of confirmations at the last minute. But what is the alternative? If we don’t show our might, exhibitors will keep playing games with us!”
Clearly, both the sides are right or wrong, depending on whether each side is judging itself or the other!