Record releases in 2009 for Kollywood

The good news first —the number of Kollywood releases for 2009 has broken all records and stands at 131 as of December 31, 2009.

It is the highest ever number in two decades and has also broken last year’s record of 120 releases. The bad news — the hit ratio has come down to 14 percent against last year’s 18 percent and a peak of 24 percent in 2006. It is the lowest hit ratio in the last five years (see box). It is clear that the boom in production has led to a fall in quality of content and audiences are losing interest. Tamil Film Distributors Association president Kalaipuli G Sekaran said, “The more the number of releases, higher the flop ratio. I wish the Tamil Film Producers Council regulates the number of releases per week.”

According to a conservative estimate, the industry has invested approximately Rs 600 crores in 131 films and lost over Rs 125 crore. The trouble is that those who were making viable films within the commercial format last year (2008), on an affordable budget of Rs 3 to 4 crore, required Rs 7 to 8 crore to make their films this year. This has ruined the winning ‘small is beautiful’ formula, and rendered producers bankrupt. At the other end, superstar films which were made on Rs 15 to 18 crore budgets, now cost around Rs 25 to Rs 30 crore, as salaries of superstars have increased by 100 to 200 percent. This has led to a cascading effect with all-round increase in production cost as heroines, comedians, villains, music directors and other technicians too have demanded a salary hike.

The market for Tamil movies has also shrunk due to recession, lack of quality content, high cost of movie tickets and easy availability of pirated videos. Concludes leading producer G Dhananjayan, “With shrinking revenue opportunities, due to low or no competition in most areas including music, overseas and satellite rights, the commercial success of a film, today, largely depends on theatrical collections in Tamil Nadu. This is a highly risky proposition in the current scenario where at least two to three films release a week. The budgets will have to be slashed as must the salaries of stars. At the same time, each film should have a strong and innovative theme for the industry to survive