Kollywood Komplications

Kollywood or Kodambakkam (holly) wood, a euphemism for Tamil cinema industry, as I understand, is on a treacherous trajectory. Kodambakkam is a locality in Chennai (or Madras) city where a number of film studios existed/exist.

Here is the link to a well written story revealing the plights of Tamil cinema industry by TOI reporter Sangeetha Kandavel.

There is a new complication thrown in by a famous actor Kamal Hassan. Here are the snippets of this interesting case.

Kamal Hassan is in the process of releasing his new movie Vishwaroopam in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi (Vishwaroop). Yes, he is the producer, director, lyricist, choreographer, actor etc., In his own admission he appears to have spent Rupees 95 crores producing the movie.

To thwart any attempts at illegal distribution of his latest movie, Kamal Hassan is planning to release this movie on DTH network, 8 hours before it is released in the theaters, despite selling the distribution rights of the movie to the theater owners.

Well, for a moment I thought this is a good move and that this guy is generous that he is releasing the movie even before it hits the theaters. Hold on there is a catch.

- DTH operator will charge Rupees 1,000 for one view for Tamil and Telugu versions and Rupees 500 for Hindi version

There lies a financial ingenuity. In addition to the tidy sum that is paid by the theater owners, an additional sum (reportedly around Rupees 50 crore) is likely to be paid by DTH operators for a recording-disabled-only-one-view telecast.

Take a look at the economics just from Tamil telecast alone.

Total households in four metros: 94,00,000 (source article)
Households in Chennai (@15%):  6,20,000
Tamil Nadu population: 6 crore
Chennai population: 1 crore
Households for rest of Tamil Nadu at 6 crore population: 30,00,000
Total households in Tamil Nadu: approx. 36,00,000
1/6th buy the cinema on DTH: Rupees 60,00,00,000

In addition, there will also be money from Telugu and Hindi versions!

No wonder Kamal Hassan surprisingly appeared in a reality musical show Super Singer T20 on Vijay TV, telecast on 26th December,  to hard sell his concept.

The theater owners especially in Tamil Nadu, who paid their money are getting scared about losing money with this move.

Be prepared, once this model is successfully proved, the cinema viewing experience is going to be massively transformed.

And you need to be extremely careful of the button called 'VoD' on your remote control of DTH transmission and double, triple check your cable bills for any such one time charges.

Kollywood vs Tollywood vs Bollywood

I am completely ill at ease to use borrowed and convoluted terminologies used for linguistic film industry. That all of them, except of course some pockets in Hindi film industry, are struggling is evident from the public reactions and responses.

Thanks to Maran Brothers, I stopped believing in the box-office collections, after the truth on monstrous manipulation of numbers, be it theatre bookings or audience numbers. They actually were excelling in converting their black money into white by showing full cinema halls, where in reality there were none.

My view on the linguistic film industry performance:

Kollywood (Kodambakkam Hollywood?) or Tamil தமிழ் film industry:

Every time I switch on either SunTV or StarVijay TV, I keep seeing a guy by name Dhanush in a number of (unwatchable) movies. He is neither good looking nor does have a personality, trying to imitate senior successful actors. Understand Aishwarya (daughter of Superstar Rajnikanth) married him. So, he can become another Rajnikanth? The number of movies they are churning out with him as hero, despite series of flops, to say the least, it is impossible to watch even 5 minutes of his movies.

Thanks to this Dhanush, I see a number of similar looking, unattractive youngsters joining the bandwagon. Even TV anchors have started to have a fling at Tamil movies. Almost every one and any one can produce, act and direct a movie and painfully do pre-marketing of their pathetic movies with captive audience like us.

Tollywood (Telugu Hollywood?) or Telugu తెలుగు film industry:

Contrary to Tamil industry, Telugu film industry is crowded with sons (of famous actors, directors, producers). In Andhra Pradesh, there is a very thin veil between film industry and politics. Can we say they are interoperable? A Vijayshanthi can lecture you on a need for a separate state, a LakshmiParvathy can lecture you on cinema being the shortcut to politics. A Jayasudha can lecture you on loyalty, political or otherwise.

These 'sons' use Telugu film industry as facilitator to enter assembly or parliament. They want to make money. If they find that their movies are found on youtube or daily motion or youku, they lecture you that the artistes and state are losing money. It is not my intention to support illegal viewing these movies. But, have these guys shown correct accounting and paid their taxes on all the money that they receive??? Certainly not.

Bollywood (Bombay Hollywood?) or Hindi हिंदी film industry:

Unlike, the Telugu film industry, in Hindi film inudstry, the process is in reverse direction. Politicians and their sons enter the movie industry in a big way. For example, a Paswan, a Deshmukh. There are many. For them there is no difference between politics and cinema. Both the place they earn handsfull and keep acting to their heart's content.

With the increased use of the Internet and social media networks, both current and earlier generations are realising that they can choose what they want.