Bollywood Spotlight

Bollywood is completing 100 years and it is no longer a hidden entertainment industry.  Rather, it now has its presence almost in every corner of the world. It competes with its counterpart Hollywood in all aspects. However, Bollywood on the whole has undergone tremendous changes over the years such as actors turning producers but with the intention doing business, Bollywood divas turning entrepreneurs to maintain future stability, small screen (TV) taking over the big screen, celebrities digital play, Bollywood case studies at management schools, small films by independent filmmakers going mainstream…….

Here is a look at some of the interesting trends of the recent times that has changed the face of Bollywood from a business perspective. I have covered a couple of these trends and therefore will provide links to those stories

      Actors turned producers:

This is not a new phenomenon. Yesteryear actors like Guru Dutt, Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor, Kishore Kumar to name a few made films because they were passionate about the craft. None of them really put a thought behind building a business out of their craft. But, today’s actors such as Shah Rukh Khan (SRK), Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Akshay Kumar, John Abraham and many more are banking on their craft and capabilities to build their business. They have turned producers but, this time around the difference is that these new wave actors turned producers are savvy business men and playing the game safely.
So what is it that today’s actors turned producers are doing right? For one they are co-producing their films with other large studio banners like Eros, Disney UTV, Viacom18 Motion Pictures among others. Secondly, these new actor-producers are doing away with their huge actor fees and instead taking a percentage of profit in the films as per a pre-agreed arrangement.

For More read here on this trend

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/bollywood-actors-turn-savvy-producers/1/189548.html

     Small Screen (TV) takes over the big Screen 

Today, TV has always been a a powerful medium for the bollywood stars. Amitabh Bachchan got a new lease of life thanks to Kaun banega Crorepati on Star Plus. And, that set the trend as other top stars followed suit finding their respective niche on TV either as a host or a Judge of a show. TV has also lent itself as a fantastic platform for promoting films. Given that the reach of TV is much higher today it is a good medium to promote films. It’s become a norm today for stars to promote their films on TV. One such recent interesting and innovative experiment is being done by Balaji Telefilms which is coming up with a new mega series called Ek Thi Naayika for the promotion of Vishal Bharadwaj and Balaji Motion Pictures new film 'Ek Thi Daayan'. The series will feature television industry’s top most actresses, coming together for the first time, in a thrilling and spooky series based on the ‘dayaan’ characters in the forthcoming film. The 16-episode series will also feature characters from ‘Ek Thi Dayaan’ , including an appearance by Emraan Hashmi. One must understand here that these are just promotional and marketing innovations before the film releases. It is a way to create that mind space for the film. But, whether this will lead to the film success is anybody’s guess.

Talking about small screen being dominant with the theatrical revenues shrinking drastically, Cable & Satellite rights have reached a new height. Broadcasters are bidding aggressively for films. Rights to almost all big budget and small films are now being prior sold even before it hits the theatres. Broadcasters are also bidding aggressively to build their own film library. Last year Star spent approximately Rs 250 crore to acquire Colors channel’s film library when they were launching Movies OK. More recently, Star India has struck Rs 400 crore deal with Ajay Devgn for all his upcoming Bollywood releases till 2017.  Devgn is the second star after Salman Khan to associate in such a deal with Star India. The deal that is for 5 years is said to include 10 films, a statement from Devgn’s office said. Complete digitisation of the broadcasting industry is expected to further increase the penetration of film channels in Hindi heartland. But, the question is while bollywood producers and actors seem to be happy and raking in the moolah from small screen, are broadcasters recovering the cost and making profits by buying films at such huge costs? I will revisit this question after a few days.

    Bollywood turns Graphical

Following the Hollywood trend, Bollywood filmmakers have joined the bandwagon of launching graphic novels prior to the release of their films. It started with Shah Rukh Khan’s upcoming film Ra.One launched its graphic novel G.One-The Journey Begins. Then iRock Media, a film production house started by Manmohan Shetty launched Zombie Talkies: Blood Fest In Bollywood, in keeping with their Zombie theme of their film Rock The Shaadi starring Abhay Deol. Farhan Akthar, the director of Don-2 released Don-2 comic and Abhishek Sharma, the director of Tere Bin Laden, has written the graphic novel Munkee Man. Also Westland Publishers is understood to be talking to director Anurag Kashyap for a couple of graphic novels. Filmmakers are of the pinion that it’s a good way to familiarize the audience with the film before its release. According to some publishers the format is trying to fill the gap between television and fine print to lure new and younger segments of readers.

     Global buyers hungry for Bollywood films

Gone are the days when Indian films were appealing only to the Indian Diaspora overseas, today audiences in non- traditional markets such as China, Korea, Japan, Germany are longing to see Indian films mainly the Bollywood flicks. The interest has been further fuelled by the success of films like Aamir Khan starrer 3 Idiots, Shah Rukh Khan starrer Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, My Name is Khan in markets such as Taiwan, Korea, Germany, France, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Poland, Malaysia, Taiwan, China and Belgium. The overseas market for Indian films is growing and is likely to increase by about 20 per cent in the next five years according to global and Indian buyers and sales agents. According to a  PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report on the Indian entertainment sector. The Indian film industry clocked overseas box office revenues to the tune of Rs 770 crore in 2010 and this is estimated to go up to Rs 1250 crore by 2015 which is a compounded annual growth rate of 10.2 per cent per annum. Film industry veterans say ten years ago, the overseas market for Indian films was just about 3-5 percent of its entire theatrical business.

     Celebrities digital play

Bollywood stars are getting very active digitally with facebook, twitter and blog account. They are also open to equity linked participation with a new age business. For example, Salman Khan was roped in as a brand ambassador of Yatra.com in return for a 15 percent equity stake. Karishma Kapoor is associated with babyoye.com which deals with Baby stuff. However, Amitabh Bachchan, is one of the most digitally savvy actors at the age of 70. He is a true digital evangelist. There is no other actor in the world his age who is so active on the digital medium. he has evolved with times and set the trend for many young actors to follow suit.

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/bigb-birthday-amitabh-bachchan-a-digital-evangelist-at-70/1/188943.html

Brands are increasingly looking at social media influencers to decide who their ambassadors should be. So, it is understood that Priyanka Chopra gets presented with Rs 28 lakh car for tweeting about Toyota twenty times. 

Similarly, tumbhi.com, an online platform for artists to showcase their talent, has roped in Bollywood heavyweights such as director & writer Anurag Kashyap and poet and lyricist Irshad Kamil in their panel along with others, to help them curate works of the millions of Indians who upload their work on this website, and guide them. Celebreties across India are already building their own voice blog follower base. They are using their blog to share voice updates to reach out to their fans who receive SMS updates of the posts. Fans can then dial-in at their convenience to listen to their voice blog. Companies like UTV interactive are cashing in on this space as it is understood that it’s a $30-40 million industry which will grow to $100 million in the next 3-4 years. It seems that vloice blogs have a monthly active user base of anywhere between 2-3 million.