Releasing movies an uphill task

Kochi: By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. — Genesis 2:2
God may have rested but Prithviraj, the lead actor of 7th Day, spent a few of the most restless days of his life once the film got over. He was on the phone to various channels and other influential people to bag satellite rights for the film.

Earlier, grabbing the lead role and acting well used to be the only tasks for a Mollywood hero. No longer. And, if an established actor like Prithviraj had to do this, it is not hard to imagine the plight of the producers of M-town, who not only have to ensure that a good movie is made within a reasonable budget on time but pull a lot of post-production strings.

Shibu G Susheelan, the producer of 7th day points out, “The game has become more risky! The channels have tightened the rules in granting the satellite rights. Being a production controller who depends entirely on financiers for money, it’s tough.”

He has been working in the industry for 22 years, having associated with successful movies like Vasthavam, 22 Female Kottayam, Monkey Pen and Tamil films like Maina and Kumki.

Shibu recollects the harrowing lengths to which the crew of 7th day, including the hero, had to go to grab satellite rights and to manage the money to load the movie in UFO and CUBE.

“Earlier, the channels used to consider the artiste’s stature and we used to get half of the money in advance. This was a big relief as we did not have to run around for money. But now the channels are demanding the first copy of the film before granting us the rights,” he says.

Haris M., the producer of the new film To Let Ambadi Talkies, has no doubt that the struggle of a producer to get a film released is more than that of making the film itself.

“Since my movie has a cast of newcomers, I cannot even dream of satellite rights. What I had to spend to get theatres to release my movie and to load it in CUBE was more than my entire production coast. In places like Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode, I did not get any theatres other than multiplexes. How can you expect a common man to spend Rs 100 or more to watch a simple film?” he asks. The movie with a good theme is finding it tough to survive.

Not all producers are in the same boat, however. Ashiq Usman, the producer of Happy Journey and Arikil Oral, says he had no such problems as he had a tie-up with ‘one of the best distribution companies’ in Kerala. “By the 51st day of our shooting, we had received 70 per cent of the satellite rights. So, we released 91 days after we began the project. We also got good publicity through Central pictures. If the producer has a good rapport with the distributors, things are easy,” he says.

He explains that distributors should be capable of ‘holding the theatres’ for movies with slow pick-up. “A few of the recent films with no big stars managed to find viewers through social networking sites and word-of-mouth publicity. It will take time to form an opinion about a film, hence the theatres need to screen them for a while,” he adds.

The new rules are necessary to prevent producers from diluting the quality of a film, says B. Rakesh, producer of One by Two. “There are many who have collected the satellite rights on the strength of their cast but failed to live up to the expectations,” he explains.

Shibu has a suggestion: “Let the channel form a ‘script board’ in collaboration with associations like MACTA, FEFKA and AMMA and the government and verify the script before issuing the rights. Then even the newbie will get support financially and we can improve the quality of the films,” he smiles.