100 crore club Real Relevance &ETT said to cross3I

👏The 100-Crore Club: What is its Real Relevance Today?

• MUMBAI, India
  

  When the Christmas 2008 release "Ghajini" chalked up Rs. 100 crore as its domestic nett collection (excluding entertainment tax), little did anyone know that within three years, this would become the new benchmark at the box-office, the parameter by which success and the statuses of stars, filmmakers and banners would be measured.

  At that point, it took a full year for the next member to join, "3 Idiots," also an Aamir Khan film, also released in Christmas 2009, which doubled the figure and crossed 200 crore to touch 202. No film has equaled that since, though one trade authority opines that the 2012 "Ek Tha Tiger," which is said to have stopped at Rs 199.5 cr., has actually crossed the magic figure ' but the banner, being close to Salman Khan's rival, has withheld the fact. As of now, it still remains the second-highest earner in Hindi film history.

  The next year ' 2010 ' saw the score double with the Eid release of Salman Khan's "Dabangg," the first film in years (possibly since "Main Hoon Na" and "Murder" in 2004) where the music actually boosted the opening of a film apart from the film's star-draw, and the Diwali "issue," "Golmaal 3." Rohit Shetty and Ajay Devgn, together and separately, had been scoring high for a while, but this film put both in the highest bracket as a team.

  Come 2011 and we had five additions more: Salman Khan's "Bodyguard" (Eid again) and "Ready," Ajay Devgn's "Singham," Shah Rukh Khan's Diwali release "RA.One" (3D, tri-lingual) and his Christmas week's "Don2." And as we all know, the bumper year that was 2012 saw the figure of members again double from 9 to 18 with "Agneepath" (Jan. 26 or Republic Day), "Housefull 2" (the beginning of summer vacations), "Rowdy Rathore," "Bol Bachchan," "Ek Tha Tiger"(Independence Day, with Eid a few days later), "Barfi!," both the Diwali films "Jab Tak Hai Jaan" and "Son of Sardaar" and the Christmas week "Dabangg 2."

  Missing the list narrowly were "The Dirty Picture" (2011), which neared the 90 cr. Mark, and "Talaash" (2012), which stopped at a lifetime net collection of 94 cr. or so.

  And what is this new term of "lifetime" collection? Very simple: in an era where reruns happen only in small centers and business from theatrical collections is limited to the first run and (oftener than not) first 3 to 14 days, this is the figure the film finally chalks up after a 3 to 5 week run, if it goes that far. And so comes the first significance of the 100 Crore Club: such films are the nearest we have to the Silver and Golden Jubilee runs of yore, when home videos and satellite television movie channels were either unknown or not widespread, and when tickets ' the only source of revenue (as reruns and television broadcasts happened years later) were an affordable Rs. 2 to 30 per person between the '60s and the early millennium.

  Let us therefore look at the first flipside of the 100 crore club in terms of business: the inflated ticket-rates at multiplexes, which vary between a barest minimum Rs. 75 (in lower grade 'plexes and smaller towns) to as high as Rs. 500 at primetime slots at upmarket centers! Cashing in on a big movie with high audience interest in the first three days' run, especially during festive seasons like Eid, Diwali and Christmas, with a 10 to 20 percent increase in rates, has become a norm.

  An additional significance is the huge number of prints in circulation, which include digital ones. Gone are the days of even 300 to 500 prints being released simultaneously, that too within the country. Today, "Ek Tha Tiger" released with more than that figure overseas, while a record 3,400 prints hit India! With piracy also going high-tech and short theatrical lives, it is important to invest this way and make hay while the "initial" sun shines!

  And this is why most of these 100 crore members are technically far inferior at the b-o. to the true all-time blockbusters of Hindi cinema like "Mughal-E-Azam," Mother India," "Sholay," "Hum Aapke Hain Koun!...," "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" and even "Gadar-Ek Prem Katha" (as late as 2001) besides even the next grade that includes "Bobby," "Amar Akbar Anthony," "Maine Pyar Kiya" and the likes. "Gadar..," alone, if the collections are inflation-adjusted, must have crossed 300 crore, though director Anil Sharma has calculated it as Rs. 2,200 crore!

  Or take a case like "RA.One," where there were extra collections at the movie-halls for the 3D glasses (over and above the escalated admission rates) and where the domestic collection figure of Rs. 120 crore was applicable across three versions ' Hindi (approximately Rs. 105 cr.), Telugu and Tamil (Rs. 15 cr. together). In short, there are no standard parameters on footfalls and ticket rates.

  A third gray area comes in the matter of the day of release. While every star hikes his rates after a hit (it is said that Hrithik Roshan is the sole exception to this convention, and that Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn consider the broader economic aspects of a film before charging their fees), the stakes in a movie continue spiraling and every (holi-)day and festival counts! Eid is locked for Salman Khan (since 2009) and Diwali has usually been lucky for Shah Rukh and Ajay, and so we have such "premium" films that are released on any which day of the week and not only a Friday.

  So while "3 Idiots" released Dec. 24, 2009 (Christmas Eve), and "Agneepath" on Jan. 26, 2012 (both Thursdays), ensuring 4-day weekends, "Bodyguard" and "Ek Tha Tiger" both released on a Wednesday, getting a 5-day opening week. The limit came when Diwali 2012 fell on Tuesday and both "Jab Tak'" and "Son of Sardaar" opened to a six-day weekend on a Tuesday! Thus it is a moot point whether in some cases, the collections would have crossed this vital figure had they released on Friday!

  But perhaps the greatest trouble area is whether a specific film is a hit or not, and this goes beyond footfalls. The first time-tested worldwide index of success and failure in any business is recovery of investment, and the second is whether there has been a decent profit. By that standards, opine trade observers, many of these 18 members have been also-rans. "RA.One," for example, was a domestic flop as its investment was a staggering 180 crore. But the overseas collections as also various rights ensured a break-even state. Some other films in this list, thanks to their high pricing, have merely made slim profits, that too because of either overseas or non-theatrical revenues or both. Here again, it is the distributors (mostly the corporate biggies) who actually lost even as the producers took home a fat profit.

  Nevertheless, despite these incongruities and gray areas, the 100-crore club has its relevance today, apart from being a prestige issue. Film budgets are being designed accordingly, and releases also timed to hit the mark. Even the powers-that-be have taken (greedy) note and have mooted a proposal where the tax pie on tickets above a certain figure will exceed the current slab of (already very high) entertainment tax!

  And now the race is on also to see how fast that benchmark of a "century,"' as it is called, is reached.

  In 2012, no one expected the ultra-violent "Agneepath" or the slightly middle-of-the-road "Barfi!" to make the grade. Shrewd trade observers offer solid reasons for both, though ' Hrithik Roshan coming in an action film almost six years after "Dhoom:2," a dearth of good films just before, and a 4-day weekend of a superbly-promoted film with a hyped item song in the former case, and a sweet musical tale after a series of masala concoctions with a strong, positive aura and message as the strength of "Barfi!."

  And so the 100-crore club is likely to get even more populated, till it gives way to higher benchmarks. The important point is that Hindi movies today are collecting that kind of money merely from the domestic market alone, and that is reason enough for this to influence star, filmmaker and possibly composer ratings.

  After all, but for Ranbir Kapoor's "Barfi!," each of the films that have made it to the 100-Crore list star one of Bollywood's six superstars, while "Ready" (Ajay Devgn), "Don 2" (Hrithik Roshan) and "Son of Sardaar" (Salman Khan) had cameos in what were Salman, SRK and Devgn films respectively.

  Interestingly, Rishi Kapoor was in the cast of "Agneepath" and "Housefull 2" and in a cameo in "Jab Tak Hai Jaan," while Vinod Khanna was in both the "Dabangg" films. Sanjay Dutt had "Agneepath," "Son of Sardaar" and a cameo in "Ready"; and Shreyas Talpade had both "Golmaal 3" and "Housefull 2." Among directors, Rohit Shetty is the only man to have three films in the list, while producers Shree Asthavinayak Cine Vision (two films), Yash Raj Films and producers Ajay Devgn, Arbaaz Khan and Malaika Arora Khan have had two films each. Four films have been home productions of Salman Khan, and two each have been co-produced by Ajay Devgn and Shah Rukh Khan respectively, accounting for almost half the lEnds 'Vishwaroopam' Battle in Tamil Nadu, Film to Release Feb. 7