Sanjay Chhabria, founder and CEO of Everest Entertainment has produced 25 Marathi films including hits such as Mee Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy. Everest also has the rights to 300 films. “About a decade back the average budget for a Marathi film was Rs. 80 lakh to Rs. 2 crore. We could release it across 20-30 screens. Now the average budgets are Rs. 3-5 crore and many films release in 300-400 screens,” said Chhabria, who comes from an old film financing family. He finds Marathi cinema a comfortable place in which to work. “It is an expanding market. I like the people, the culture. Also, Marathi has four established general entertainment channels with strong audiences and viewership,” he said.
That is arguably the most important pre-requisite for smaller non-Hindi cinemas to thrive. More than 57% of all TV viewership in India goes to languages other than Hindi going by data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC). However, unlike Hindi which is spoken by over 500 million people, most Indian languages are spoken by about 60-70 million people each. These may or may not be lucrative markets. Therefore, not all have the creative ecosystem that can support local cinema. The demand for programming from Zee Marathi, Star Pravah or Colors Marathi creates a demand for writers, directors, technicians et al bringing in steady work and money. This is the first reason a good broadcast business in any language helps.
The second follows from this. Star Pravah or Colors Marathi are also huge buyers and at times, producers of local cinema to fill their 24-hour channels. Zee Studios, for instance, has made movies like Sairat and Ti Sadya Kai Kartey among others. They amplify what would have been just a state-level film onto broadcast and if it resonates, the film could find a national audience too, like Sairat did. Note that all the languages that have a strong television ecosystem and market - Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi – have cinemas which have taken the vicissitudes of the business well.
The third reason why a robust broadcast ecosystem matters comes from a look at the languages where it doesn’t exist. In Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese, local cinemas remain financially weak. This then dampens creative ambition and stunts the market in many ways.
Take a look at Mahesh Danannavar’s experience. After a Masters in entrepreneurship from the US and seven years of working the start-up scene he turned to his first love, films. He soon realised that he couldn’t make a go of it in Hindi cinema – the budgets are big and there is a lot of competition. That is how he ended up looking at Marathi, Gujarati and Punjabi cinema. His first film as producer, under MD Media Corp, was a Gujarati feature film, Shu Thayu? (2018) a remake of the 2012 Tamil film, Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom. It cost Rs. 4 crore including publicity and grossed Rs. 21 crore at the box-office, making for an unusual Gujarati hit.
Danannavar has since produced four films. And he’s got his formula down pat — cap production costs at Rs. 2 crore no matter what the temptation and add a similar amount for publicity. Some of this money could come from a state subsidy of anywhere from Rs. 50-75 lakh. Much like the producers of the Nineties, he sells OTT rights in advance, recovering up to 80% of his cost before release. “I don’t rely completely on the box-office,” he said. There are no major TV channels at play, so the box-office and OTT are the main revenue streams. “The challenge in Gujarati is there is no Star Pravah or Zee Marathi. Therefore distribution and exhibition is difficult,” said Chhabria.
The presence of a good broadcast ecosystem doesn’t just limit who you can sell the rights to; it also limits what you make. The Marathi audience enjoys diversity – from family comedies such as Baipan Bhari Deva to sharp social comments such as Sairat to a look at gender bias in Natarang. But the Gujarati audience is about family films only: It is the safest play in that market, say producers.
Danannavar is now producing his first Marathi film, Raigad to Vietnam. But he’s had to fight hard to keep the cost of production at Rs. 2 crore in a state where the market is happy and growing. He is pleasantly surprised with the presence of TV as a revenue stream along with OTT and a 25% state subsidy. “TV helps,” he said. It certainly does.