There’s either nothing or too much playing at the cinemas in any given week. This truth about film programming has held good over the past few years, and it promises to get better and worse in 2015.
After a typically slow start in the first week to welcome back vacationers and accommodate the previous holiday season’s big title (this time Rajkumar Hirani’s PK), the release calendar kicks off good and proper on January 9 with two action entertainers in Hindi and English (Tevar and Taken 3) and a drama about art, relationships and deception (Big Eyes). A few screens will also be allotted chiefly at PVR Cinemas multiplexes for its arthouse slot Director’s Rare (Names Unknown).
Fans who fetishise the first day, first show will be spoilt for choice on January 16. Eight movies open on this day, including at least four possible award nominees (The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, American Sniper), a family-friendly comedy (Paddington), a horror movie featuring scream queen Bipasha Basu (Alone) and the Hindi dubbed version of a potential Tamil blockbuster (Shankar’s I). These lists don’t take into account the goings-on in other language cinemas, including Tamil, Telugu and Marathi.
The flood of American and British titles in January and February is easily explained. Most if not all of them are likely to be nominated for the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy Awards, giving them a free publicity ride. Releases over the next few weeks include Foxcatcher (January 23), Birdman (January 30), Mr Turner (January 30) and Whiplash (February 20). The first two months of 2014 were no different. Between January 3 and February 28, several otherwise-uncommercial Hollywood films emerged, including American Hustle and Nebraska. For the rest of the year, Hollywood studio representatives in India will roll out their typical mix of superhero-based movies, franchise titles and special-effects extravaganzas.
Too many movies, too little time
The screens will be flooded with Hindi releases all the way through the religious festival seasons, the school breaks, and the long weekends (at least six this year). The ICC Cricket World Cup, which will take place in Australia and New Zealand from February 14 to March 29, will stem the flow somewhat. The consensus in the trade is that A-list movies need bumper opening weekends and a clean two-week run to enter the record books; this suffers during major sports tournament.
This doesn’t mean that the World Cup period is dull. Sriram Raghavan’s revenge drama Badlapur opens on February 20, while the special-effects spectacles Heart of the Sea and Chappie will appear on March 13. As soon as the World Cup wraps up, there will be a near-relentless assault on the screens, including the action thriller Phantom (April 3), period drama Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (April 10), the second Avengers movie (May 1), the Mad Max reboot (May 15) and the year’s second period drama Bombay Velvet (May 15). The second half of the year is more evenly spaced out over several A-list productions, including Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan (July 16) and Shah Rukh Khan’s Fan (August 14) and Ranbir Kapoor’s Jagga Jasoos (August 28).
This glut will lead to a few predictable outcomes. Big-budget productions will muscle out every other release, however insignificant, to maximise opening weekend incomes. Producers and distributors of smaller productions will complain about poor showcasing and unfair terms. This is especially the case in Maharashtra, where movies made in the local Marathi language have to concede to terms and conditions set by Bollywood.
Some films will vanish before their release has even been registered, others that need word-of-mouth publicity to survive will be pulled out before they can settle down. Hollywood distributors in India will concentrate on loud and forgettable tentpole titles, ignoring other American dramas and comedies.
Programming holds the key
This will be a year of diversity and impermanence, expensive publicity campaigns and limited attention spans, noisy landings and whimpering exits.
The real challenge lies in scheduling the confusing array of films that arrive every Friday , and judging just how much and what kind of cinema can be consumed in each period. For instance, The Imitation Game, a biopic of pioneering British mathematician Alan Turing and starring heartthrob Benedict Cumberbatch, was supposed to open on January 23, but it has been advanced by a week and will emerge on the same day as The Theory of Everything , another biopic about another British scientist, this time Stephen Hawking. How many Oxbridge backdrops, BBC accents and London manners can moviegoers take in a single week?
One solution could be to give fewer screens and proper show timings to smaller productions. Another is to go ahead and release these movies in the same week as the marquee monsters. The third, and most likely and unfortunate solution, will be piracy. It’s possible that several films, especially the English ones, will be downloaded rather than experienced on the big screen, ticket and beverage costs at multiplexes being what they are. Indian moviegoers have had precious little choice for years, but now, they seem to have too much of it.
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After a typically slow start in the first week to welcome back vacationers and accommodate the previous holiday season’s big title (this time Rajkumar Hirani’s PK), the release calendar kicks off good and proper on January 9 with two action entertainers in Hindi and English (Tevar and Taken 3) and a drama about art, relationships and deception (Big Eyes). A few screens will also be allotted chiefly at PVR Cinemas multiplexes for its arthouse slot Director’s Rare (Names Unknown).
Fans who fetishise the first day, first show will be spoilt for choice on January 16. Eight movies open on this day, including at least four possible award nominees (The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, American Sniper), a family-friendly comedy (Paddington), a horror movie featuring scream queen Bipasha Basu (Alone) and the Hindi dubbed version of a potential Tamil blockbuster (Shankar’s I). These lists don’t take into account the goings-on in other language cinemas, including Tamil, Telugu and Marathi.
The flood of American and British titles in January and February is easily explained. Most if not all of them are likely to be nominated for the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy Awards, giving them a free publicity ride. Releases over the next few weeks include Foxcatcher (January 23), Birdman (January 30), Mr Turner (January 30) and Whiplash (February 20). The first two months of 2014 were no different. Between January 3 and February 28, several otherwise-uncommercial Hollywood films emerged, including American Hustle and Nebraska. For the rest of the year, Hollywood studio representatives in India will roll out their typical mix of superhero-based movies, franchise titles and special-effects extravaganzas.
Too many movies, too little time
The screens will be flooded with Hindi releases all the way through the religious festival seasons, the school breaks, and the long weekends (at least six this year). The ICC Cricket World Cup, which will take place in Australia and New Zealand from February 14 to March 29, will stem the flow somewhat. The consensus in the trade is that A-list movies need bumper opening weekends and a clean two-week run to enter the record books; this suffers during major sports tournament.
This doesn’t mean that the World Cup period is dull. Sriram Raghavan’s revenge drama Badlapur opens on February 20, while the special-effects spectacles Heart of the Sea and Chappie will appear on March 13. As soon as the World Cup wraps up, there will be a near-relentless assault on the screens, including the action thriller Phantom (April 3), period drama Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (April 10), the second Avengers movie (May 1), the Mad Max reboot (May 15) and the year’s second period drama Bombay Velvet (May 15). The second half of the year is more evenly spaced out over several A-list productions, including Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan (July 16) and Shah Rukh Khan’s Fan (August 14) and Ranbir Kapoor’s Jagga Jasoos (August 28).
This glut will lead to a few predictable outcomes. Big-budget productions will muscle out every other release, however insignificant, to maximise opening weekend incomes. Producers and distributors of smaller productions will complain about poor showcasing and unfair terms. This is especially the case in Maharashtra, where movies made in the local Marathi language have to concede to terms and conditions set by Bollywood.
Some films will vanish before their release has even been registered, others that need word-of-mouth publicity to survive will be pulled out before they can settle down. Hollywood distributors in India will concentrate on loud and forgettable tentpole titles, ignoring other American dramas and comedies.
Programming holds the key
This will be a year of diversity and impermanence, expensive publicity campaigns and limited attention spans, noisy landings and whimpering exits.
The real challenge lies in scheduling the confusing array of films that arrive every Friday , and judging just how much and what kind of cinema can be consumed in each period. For instance, The Imitation Game, a biopic of pioneering British mathematician Alan Turing and starring heartthrob Benedict Cumberbatch, was supposed to open on January 23, but it has been advanced by a week and will emerge on the same day as The Theory of Everything , another biopic about another British scientist, this time Stephen Hawking. How many Oxbridge backdrops, BBC accents and London manners can moviegoers take in a single week?
One solution could be to give fewer screens and proper show timings to smaller productions. Another is to go ahead and release these movies in the same week as the marquee monsters. The third, and most likely and unfortunate solution, will be piracy. It’s possible that several films, especially the English ones, will be downloaded rather than experienced on the big screen, ticket and beverage costs at multiplexes being what they are. Indian moviegoers have had precious little choice for years, but now, they seem to have too much of it.
