A few days ago, the Tamil Film Active Producers Association had requested theatre owners through a letter to reduce movie ticket prices in the state in a major move to encourage audiences to return to theatres to watch films. As a reply to that letter, the Tamil Film Exhibitors' Association have gone on to explain what difficulties they face, and why they can't reduce ticket prices.
The letter starts by detailing how the theatre owners are ending up losing revenue every time a film is released. "After making a film, you advertise that it has collected 1000 crores, 800 crores, 536 crores, then how are you making a loss? You then go on to pay huge salaries to the actors and technicians and we end up bearing the burden of it."
The letter then goes on to say how the exhibitors' expenditures are only increasing and not decreasing. "A film gets revenue from various rights such as foreign rights, satellite rights, digital rights, Indian rights, song rights, etc. We are often forced to give producers a 70 to 80 per cent share. We keep incurring increased expenditures in the form of increased electricity bills, and increases in Minimum wages, among other things."
Next, the statement talks about how OTT rights are also causing trouble for exhibitors. "Out of 318 films that were released last year, only 19 films were successful. The rest of the films stopped making money after the first weekend. The biggest reason is that OTP rights are given in a very short period of time after the film's release. In Bollywood, OTP rights are given only after eight weeks. We have been requesting the same in Tamil Nadu as well, but the producers are yet to follow suit."
On the practical financial difficulties of the theatre owners, the letter details, "There are many new platforms for you to generate income. For us, there is no other income except the theatre income. We may be able to generate ten times more income if we're allowed to change the situation of our theatres. But, in the current situation, we are forced to do business by pawning or selling jewellery. Around 60 theatres have been closed in the last 3 months due to a lack of proper revenue. In the next two months, another 60 theatres will be closed."
Lastly, the letter ends with, "If the above-mentioned situation continues, it will become very difficult to get theatres to screen movies. Therefore, we request you to reduce the cost of production and the salary of actors and make films with good stories according to the taste of the people so that more people come to the theatres to watch the film. And as our main demand, if we get a share on the basis of 50% for big budget films, 40% for small budget films and 25% for re-release films, the cinema world will win. So let's all come together and make a good decision on this."
(This story originally appeared in Cinema Express)