KOCHI: From ‘Marupuram’ to ‘Paulettante Veedu’, a total of 118 Malayalam films were released till mid-December 2016.
However, the year will be remembered mainly for the whopping success of ‘Pulimurugan’, which has broken all exiting collection records in Kerala box-office. The collective approximate budget of all the movies released in Malayalam is roughly estimated between Rs 500 crore and Rs 600 crore.Of the total movies, 22 were hits at the Box Office. As per the assessment of trade analysts, the minimum total revenue garnered by the 22 movies will come to around Rs 340 crore, thanks to nearly Rs 135 crore worldwide businesses that ‘Pulimurugan’ alone has covered so far.
“We expect that ‘Pulimurugan’ will amass Rs 100 crore from theatres in Kerala alone. The total business may exceed Rs 150 crore. This tremendous success will rewrite all existing economic equations of the Malayalam film industry. Now the filmmakers can think of big projects and explore other-language markets too,” according to director B Unnikrishnan.
However, at least the initial four to five months of 2017 is expected to witness a slowdown in Malayalam film production: the major reason being the impact of demonetisation. With funding from money lenders in Chennai and Hyderabad likely to be limited, it will be interesting to see how the “rolling” producers will survive.