Thursday, March 4, 2010

Hidden facts of Overseas Telugu Movie Distribution!!!



I want to throw some light regarding the issues and fault practices involved in overseas distribution of telugu movies.Exhibitors(local movie distributors in their respective areas) and telugu movie lovers are being at a great loss due to some Distribution companies.


-People from andhra pradesh especially who have a great passion for telugu cinema are getting into the process of screening the movie in their own areas. First time screener would definitely not know how to talk to the distributor who buys the whole theaterical rights for the movie all over usa(distributor). The distributor would quote a huge price to the new comer who is willing to screen the movie in his own area.South film industry especially in telugu film industry there are several people who have a great passion towards movies and this passion makes them buy movies without even having a proper knowledge of how the trade works once you get into it. The exhibitor who buys the movie to screen in his own area needs to consider few things before he even thinks of buying the movie in his area are:
->What is the previous business of the hero movie in that area?How much was it sold for and how many people saw the movie even after the websites gave ratings to the movie?
This is the first point to be considered as we can get to know the crowd pulling capacity of the hero in that particular area.
For example a super hit movie gives no profits to the exhibitors because the number of people who saw the movie was very less even though it got good reviews in websites, is it due to the heavy price it was sold for? or is the hero capacity is limited to that extent ? basing on these issues you can consider to take the movie by making proper calculations of profit and loss based on the history of the hero.

->Combination craze is another important factor before buying the movie for your area. An NTR-RAJAMOULI movie business would be at its peak when compared to other Combination of NTR with another director, track record plays a major role here especially in usa, the distributor quotes a heavy price to the exhibitor next time as the previous movie in the combination has done exceptionally well. But depending on the previous movie run if the exhibitor tries to take the next movie of NTR with a different director for the same price of the previous combo(ntr-rajamouli) as stated above then it will be a huge risk for him.This factor also must be considered before taking the movie in your area. Its not the same case back in AP,as business there purely depends upon the heroes previous movies and his craze.

->Distributors in USA are buying the films of big heroes for huge prices and due to this they tend to sell the movie to each local area exhibitor for higher prices. What happens here? Its completely the distributor fault to take the movie for such a high price , which makes him sell it for even more higher price than expected which results in heavy losses to the exhibitor. People who tend to enter movie screening business in their respective areas are at major loss due to these kind of distributors, as they are unaware of the movie potential and just due to their sheer passion they take the movies and screen them in their area and it will be too late for exhibitor to realize that there will be a great loss to him.

->One thing i want to say to the distributors is that buy the overseas rights for a price which is manageable,which is normal, instead of buying them for exorbitant prices,producers will demand more money but make sure you talk to them for a good deal instead of blindly paying them the price which they quote ,by this practice even the selling rate to the exhibitor decreases , relations between distributor and exhibitor will become strong and both of them will get good profits.Due to some of the distributors who quote heavy prices to the exhibitors what happens is that the ticket rates have increased to 15$ and sometimes for big heroes its even 16$ in the first week.Everyone is at loss due to this , a family of four would definitely think twice before going to the movie due to the hiked ticket price, due to which the exhibitor is forced to reduce the ticket price ,what happens? the exhibitor is at heavy loss due to this , but he has no other option other than reducing the price as he at least needs to get back the money what he paid to the distributor for the print.


-> Upcoming movies of mahesh babu, pawan kalyan, allu arjun in the summer and the price tag for these movies in all the areas is so unreasonable and immoderate that even the well established exhibitors are fearing to take the movie, then what about the new comers with lots of passion entering into this business? they are just being fooled by the distributors who say that the previous movies of so and so hero has done tremendous business and quote exorbitant prices to the exhibitors(local distributors) and every new comer in this business are being disappeared after one movie due to heavy financial loss, even the well established exhibitors are moving away from this business due to the distributors.

->Its My humble request to the distributors to have control over the money they are paying to the producers while buying rights from the producer for overseas , which will make the exhibitor happy as he can get the print for a reasonable price and even the ticket prices will be reduced to a reasonable extent thereby making the people also feel comfortable to spend ticket money on a movie. Finally everyone will get benefited if the distributor attitude towards buying a Telugu movie changes.

-written by akc
please leave your comments




4 comments:

  1. Yes I agree with you brother....Theater nearest to me where telugu cinema is screened is 200 Miles away...everytime my favorite hero's movie is released I drive 200 Miles to and fro, which costs me around 60 dollars for gas plus the ticket price of 16 dollars and food expences costs me around 90 to 100 dollars.
    end of the day if the movie is good I see the worth in spending this 100 dollars else they are wasted.

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  2. clean and understandable analysis.. your ture .. i had screened a movie in st louis and i was at great loss due to the high amount paid by me to the distributor

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  3. distrubutors are craving for money for every movie. Though its just a business , but still there must be some moral values and relationships between the business involved people, but now a days that is lost. Great article buddy!

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  4. interesting analysis i being a distributor would not accept all what you wrote but major part of what you have analysed is right

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