NEW DELHI: Poor storytelling, the decline in single screens and the rise of OTT platforms are drowning the Hindi cinema Industry aka Bollywood.
In a note, SBI Ecowrap cited several factors as to what is working for the South cine industry and that not working for Bollywood. For example, 62 per cent of the single-screen theatres are in South India, with North India having a share of only 16 per cent followed by the west with 10 of all single-screen cinema halls. This means the affordability quotient is much higher in the south than in the north.
“The Hindi film industry aka Bollywood, after decades of storytelling that has made us elated and exuberant or sad and thoughtful at times seems to be at an inflexion point unlike any other disruption it has faced before,” said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Adviser, State Bank of India (SBI).
Citing the example of content in Bollywood movies, Ghosh explains that the average rating of 43 Hindi movies since Jan 2021 was just 5.9 on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database), way below the 7.3 rating of 18 Hindi dubbed movies.
According to Ghosh, a simple regression exercise indicates that an extra one point IMDB rating leads to Rs 17 crore more collections, "Two recent releases from the YRF Production - Samrat Prithviraj and Samshera - were shunned by critics as well as the public and have abysmal IMDB ratings of 5.9 and 4.9, respectively. Even Aamir Khan starrer Laal Singh Chaddha, produced by Aamir Khan Productions and Viacom18 Studios, has a rating of 5. Needless to say, all these three movies are cited as disasters at the domestic Box Office. While YRF’s two flicks theatrical run is over, Laal Singh Chaddha’s worldwide gross now stands at Rs 126 crore against its reported budget of Rs 180 crore."
Its domestic collection is yet to surpass Rs 60 crore. Movie producers also make money by selling overseas rights, music rights, satellite rights, and OTT rights among other things. However, in cases of big flops, they fail to recover their cost of production even after selling these rights.