(This story originally appeared in on Jul 28, 2017)

Why Kattappa killed

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OVERSEAS VIEWERSHIP

Bahubali fans in China will get their answers, in their own mother tongue, when the second part of the epic movie -‘Bahubali 2: The Conclusion’ - reels out across 4000 screens in China this September.The multilingual Indian movie, now dubbed in Mandarin for Chinese viewers, is expected to pip the box office collections of Dangal, which claims to have raked in over Rs 1500 crore from the land of the red dragon.The rising popularity of Indian movies —Bollywood as well as regional cinema – has uncovered a new revenue stream for Indian cinema . Revenue from ‘overseas theatricals’, as a part of overall film industry proceeds, has risen from Rs 760 crore in 2012 to nearly Rs 1,100 crore in 2016, as per a recent KPMG report. The Indian film industry was worth Rs 14,230 crore in that year. Aamir Khan in China and the United Kingdom, Shah Rukh Khan in the United States and Germany, and Salman Khan in the Gulf countries — those are pretty much the hottest markets for these badshahs of Bollywood, although their popularity extends to other countries, too, from Canada and Japan to Malaysia and Turkey.“Overseas theatricals, as a revenue stream, has become an important factor for the Indian movie industry. It will give Indian cinema more screens and a wider viewership base,” says Ajit Thakur, CEO of Trinity Pictures, the motion pictures production division of Eros International.“The US, UK, Canada and Gulf countries already have a good viewership for Indian movies. Other countries such as China are also waking up to Indian movies. This is a very supportive trend,” Thakur adds.The 1980s and the 90s were dark ages, if one were to measure ‘overseas theatrical’ success of Bollywood films. Barring a few offbeat films (parallel cinema, in industry parlance) winning critical acclaim, not many Indian movies crossed the seas to reach foreign audiences. This trend, however, reversed progressively with Lagaan, Devdas and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (in 2001, 2002 and 2006 respectively doing gainful business in the UK, the US, Canada and GCC countries.Subsequent Bollywood blockbusters such as 3-Idiots, Dhoom-3, PK, Dangal and Bahubali-2 garnered larger revenue share from overseas theatricals.The performance of Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal in China earlier this year could well prove to be a game changer. The film reportedly raked in over Rs 1,500 crore from that country, almost 50% more than what all overseas theatricals from India collected in 2016 – and nearly two and a half times the business (about Rs 600 crore) done in India.Amir Khan is learnt to have travelled across major Chinese cities promoting Dangal and his earlier films PK and 3-Idiots. This, in a way, has created “equity” for his future releases in that country.“China can be a good market for Indian movies as we’re culturally similar,” says Thakur of Trinity Pictures. “Besides, China is also looking for good content, which can be played on their screens. Indian and Chinese film industries can coexist and be useful for one another,” he adds.The first real signs of the potential that lay overseas came to light seven years ago. Movie curators at the Mumbai office of Fox Star Studios knew they had a winner when they read through the script of My Name Is Khan, the Shah Rukh Khan– Kajol-starrer released in 2010.MNK had a global release, opening in some 50 centres across the world. The film did exceptionally well in 40-odd centres, thanks to its politically-relevant content and some raving reviews by international film critics. MNK logged $23 million (roughly Rs 147 crore) in overseas collections, finding a ninth place in IMDB’s ‘highest grossing Indian film in overseas markets’ list.“MNK did well across most overseas markets it released… The film’s success was not limited to just one country,” says Vijay Singh, CEO at Fox Star Studios.“We had to do a separate edit of the film, to make it more appropriate for foreign viewers… We tightened the script a bit and clipped the song sequences short,” explains Singh. MNK, which depicts the life of an immigrant Muslim in the post-9/11 paranoiac United States, breached language and cultural barriers to touch emotional chords of movie-buffs across the world.India rolls out roughly 1,200 new releases every year. Of this, Bollywood counts the highest at around 300 movies closely followed by Tamil and Telegu, which add another 450 movies between the two. The rest are movies in other regional Indian languages.If you look at the revenue split of the Indian movie industry, nearly 60% comes from inland viewership (or ‘domestic theatricals’), 10– 15% from overseas box-office collections, 15-20% by way of cable & satellite rights and the remaining through music & digital rights (‘video on demand’ linkages to Hotstar, Netflix & Amazon Prime Videos included).“A large chunk of industry revenues come from Bollywood, Tamil and Telegu movies. But now even regional movies have started contributing to the larger pie,” says Girish Menon, partner & head (Media & Entertainment), KPMG, a consulting firm.“The revenue growth for the industry has been flat this year, due to the lack of content coming through, especially in Bollywood. Number of new movies released has been flat for a while now. This is impacting the industry’s revenue growth,” explains Menon.Till about a few years ago, only big budget Bollywood movies were distributed aggressively in overseas markets such as US, UK, Canada and the Gulf states. However, this trend changed a bit when Irrfan Khan-starrer The Lunchbox (2013) collected Rs 70 crore as part of its overseas theatrical revenues. These days even mid- and small-budget movies with strong content are getting released in foreign theatres.Movies such as Kai Po Che, Neerja, Rustom and Airlift have done appreciably well in foreign markets.“The profile of the diaspora is fast changing,” says Siddharth Roy Kapoor, the former MD of Disney India and current president of Film & TV Producers’ Guild. “There are more Indian working professionals in developed countries now. They’ll watch any film with good, universal content.”“There are a lot of places where our film stars are popular. The industry should go beyond traditional, English-speaking markets such as South Korea, Japan and South America that consume dubbed Hollywood content,” says Sushilkumar Agrawal, CEO of Ultra Media & Entertainment. “Our films stand a good chance in these markets.”Regional movies have also started taking baby-steps into overseas markets. Tamil movies overseas box office collection touched Rs 350 crore in 2016 while the top-10 Telegu movies garnered 13% higher overseas revenue in 2016 (over 2015), as per KPMG.For Tamil films, the overseas market is evenly spread across the globe, with Malaysia being the largest contributor followed by USA, Singapore, Gulf countries, Europe and Sri Lanka. Telegu movies mostly watched in the US, closely followed by audiences in Australia, Malaysia and UK. For Malayalam films, Gulf States contribute 75% of overseas revenues.Telegu films starring Pawan Kalyan and Mahesh Babu do well in US while Rajanikant movies (such as Sivaji, Robot and Kabali) sell more in Japan, Singapore and Malaysia.At the end of the day, though, as Vivek Krishnani, managing director at Sony Pictures Entertainment, puts it: “Only uniqueness of content can ensure the success of a movie in overseas markets.”Selling an Indian film abroad is an expensive affair as revenue-sharing agreements invariably favour the screen-owners. Further, Indian movies going abroad need special rounds of editing, sub-titling/dubbing and promotion, which are prohibitively expensive in developed markets.But for a good movie, this may just be money well spent. If audiences throng to see the movie, ticket sales alone would take care of all the expenses, and leave a generous surplus for producers and distributors.A film buff in the US or China pays three-four times as much as her counterpart back home for a matinee ticket.