First Quarter (2005) Report Card , Industry Looses 60 Crores

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There were a total of 57 releases from January to March including 7 dubbed in Hindi from other languages . Add to this , three English films - ´Amu´(partly in other languages) , ´Sins´ and ´White Noise´ .

Of the 57 Hindi releases , barely 3 could be termed plus fares . Strangely , none of the 57 releases proved hits for everyone associated with them . That is to say , in the three months , there was not a single film that brought profits to all associated with it .

´Page 3´ proved a mini windfall for its producers and for Sahara which acquired its all-world rights . Although it did not not make money in all the circuits , the film scored excellently in cities like Bombay , Pune , Delhi , Indore , Nagpur and Bnagalore etc. The biggest advantage of ´Page 3´ was that it was made at a modest budget of around Rs. 3 crores . For that kind of money , the producers almost doubled their investment .

´Black´ could have repeated the ´Page 3´ story but if the low budget of the latter film was its doing , the high cost of ´Black´ was the unfortunate part . The producers of ´Black´ just about recovered their investment (after selling off the non-theatrical rights ) of a reported Rs. 21.5 crores in the Amitabh-Rani starrer . The ones laughing all the way to the bank are Bombay distributor Kumar Mangat and Overseas and electronic media distributor Yash Chopra .

´Zeher´ , made at a little over Rs. 3 crores , has not proved to be a burden for its producers , what with Bombay territory recording a share of Rs. 71 lakhs in the first week and Delhi -U.P. posting over Rs. 40 lakhs for its distributor . Of course some other distributors of the film of the film weren´t as lucky but producers Mahesh Bhatt and Mukesh Bhatt will at least not lose money in the enterprise . Frankly , no-loss is equivalent to making profits these days .

In the case of ´Bewafaa´ , producer Boney Kapoor as also many of its distributor ( CP , CI and East Punjab) were , no doubt in the red . But his Overseas and Bombay distributors aren´t complaining because the film managed to bring in the moolah in the two territories .

The major debacles of the period under reference were ´Kisna´ , ´Elaan´ , ´Shabd´ , ´Vaada´ , ´Zameer -The Fire Within´ , ´Insan´ , ´Jurm´ , ´Blackmail´ and ´Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav ´ .

While all what is stated above is about what has already elapsed , the sad part is that producers don´t seem to be learning their lessons . Undue importance is still being attached to stars and little importance is being given to scripts . Stars are , no doubt , very essential but only if they are signed for films with proper story-lines .

Without coherent scripts , stars are like worthless showpieces , while in well-scripted films , they shine like true gem.

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