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This is the new strategy of producers and exhibitors. Flood the theatres with as many prints as possible. As one big film follows another, the number of prints shoots up. Buffeted by this strategy, the audience has to watch the film because they cannot avoid it. The competition, the one-upmanship has reached such stages that even critics are assessing the success or failure of a film by the number of prints.
There was method
behind this madness. Endhiran was the most expensive film to be
made in India with estimates varying from Rs 160 to Rs 200 crore. The
producers, distributors and exhibitors knew that the boxoffice success
of a film depended on how much money it made during the first three
days of its multiplex releases. So, have as many shows as possible in
as many theatres and naturally this called for an unusually large
number of prints.
Advance bookings for Endhiran were so tight that the film was declared a hit even before its release date! To be assured of profits, theatres hiked their ticket rates to unprecedented levels but the paying public did not complain Endhiran was only following the example of today’s print flooding strategy, which one might say, began with Lagaan. Aamir Khan hit the jackpot with his 3 Idiots (1550 prints in India and another 350 abroad) and his starrer Ghajini (1200 prints). Salman Khan, who had a limited success compared to the other Khans, in a do-or-die attempt came out with his ultimate entertainer, Dabangg (1584 prints). Even regional and foreign films joined the rat race. The 3-D version of James Cameron’s Avatar released 700 prints in different languages and the Telugu hit Boss starring Nagarjuna had 280 prints. "We can’t help it," explained the Telugu film star, ‘everyone is doing it.’" The costly strategy of thousands of prints flooding the market does not spell success all the time. If the film is bad, nothing can save it, not even a record number of prints. Matinee idol, Akshay Kumar, riding high after a number of hits, learnt this lesson the hard way when two of his films, Singh is Kingg and From Chandni Chowk to China sank despite the thousand plus print strategy. Such a strategy makes it difficult to compare great hits from the past to the present ones when various jubilees used to be celebrated grandly. Maratha Mandir came to be known as Mughul E Azam theatre because the film, after its premiere, ran for 75 weeks. Who can forget the long runs of films like Mother India, Ganga Jumna, Ram aur Shyam and Guide in well-known single theatres of Bombay. More recently, Liberty Cinema, near Metro, screened Rajshri film Hum Aapke Hai Kaun for more than 75 weeks. With the advent of multiplexes, however, the entire concept has changed. We can no longer expect the old type of jubilees and reconcile ourselves to the strange fact a film being declared a hit or flop after just three days! Commented veteran film exhibitor Manoj Desai, owner of the Gaiety-Galaxy complex, a keen student of Hindi Cinema, "It is so difficult to judge a Hindi film in the current environment. If five or six people walk out during a screening of a film for one reason or the other, it sets off a rumour that the film was ‘bekar’ and could die. A film needs time to settle down, which is not available under the new system". Who knows, had Sholay been released in the current multiplex environment, it might have failed. The film took about 15days to settle down and then began to draw audiences at record levels.
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Take some recent
examples. The K Sankar-Rajnikant offering Robot (Endhiran
in its regional avatar) flooded the market with 2250 prints, the focus
being South India with 1700 prints for the Tamil and Telugu versions.
Theatres exhibited the film in six of seven screenings, the first of
which from an ungodly 4 a.m. Such was the craze for the Rajni Saar
film that every show went houseful!
