Let The Music Play

Saturday 23rd April 2011 11.00 IST

Guest Column Shailesh Kapoor

In the middle of a long-drawn cricket season, the Rs. 10 crore nett domestic opening taken by Vashu Bhagnani's Faltu took the film trade by surprise. Featuring a weak starcast and a first time director, Faltu was written off a few months ago as a doting father's desperate attempt to resurrect his son's tottering acting career.

Instead, the film managed to rake in a sizeable fortune, despite releasing on the weekend of the big World Cup final on Saturday. On a clean cricket-less weekend, Faltu could have touched Rs. 14-15 crore, almost the same number as 'superstar' Akshay Kumar's Patiala House that released this February.

Yet again, Faltu's success story highlights the importance of one of the most crucial elements in the mix that makes a film deliver on the opening weekend – its music. The film's frontal song 'Party abhi baaki hai' entered the Top 10 on our consumer-generated countdown charts Heartbeats as early as the first week of March. It currently rules the roost at no. 1, having dislodged 'Sheila ki jawaani' from that position two weeks ago. Two other songs from the film have found a consistent place in the Top 20 over the last three weeks.

Over the last year, our company has been shouting from the rooftop trying to convince film producers on the importance of getting at least one hit song in their kitty before their film's release. There has been conclusive data to build the case, none less than the comparison between I Hate Luv Storys and Break Ke Baad. Both films belonged to the same genre, and had a similar starcast, with a common male lead in Imran Khan. They released in exactly the same number of cinemas, and had strong producers backing them. But while the former managed an opening weekend of Rs. 23 crore nett, the latter settled for only Rs. 10 crore.

The difference, of course, was the music. I Hate Luv Storys had two songs in the Top 10 before its release. Break Ke Baad's music took time to pick, with only one song in the Top 20 when the film released, and none in the Top 10. Eventually, Break Ke Baad's music has done well, and managed to find its fans. However, this belated success has not benefited the producers of the film.

Earlier in the year, another non-starcast film Tanu Weds Manu managed to get a chartbuster well before its release,thus compensating for the lack of a starcast.Hence, the importance of music delivering the goods at the right time can't be overstated. While the new age Hindi cinema is moving towards more realistic stories and away from lip sync songs, the core need for good music has remain unchanged, especially given the huge young population which is driving the box office today. A population that's always connected to the latest hits, through their mobiles, computers or iPods.

In times of starcast limitation, where only a handful of stars have the ability to draw audiences on their name alone (and none of them are 'economical' business propositions), smartly done and smartly promoted music will hold the key to profitability in the next few years.

So, the next time you are looking out for the next box office hit, just look out for the new chartbuster on the blocks!

Shailesh Kapoor is the Co-founder & CEO of Ormax Media, a media research firm specializing in film research