What does someone — anyone — mean by asking, “Is the film a flop?” A film’s success ratio is measured by the cost-versus-recovery pattern. Or it depends upon what it was expected to collect by whom. Or what the so-called critics said. Or what every individual who saw the film felt about it. To gauge every individual’s take on a film is impossible of course. So you have to make do with the few people you get to interact with. Also if you ask around, after a film releases, you will get extremely contradictory reactions and comments.
So, determining a film’s success or failure cannot be an exact science: expectations from each and every film is determined by a variety of reasons. Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya may not have been a hit for him, but for Ranbir Kapoor it was a super hit since it established him in the industry. Darr may have been a super hit for Shah Rukh Khan, but for Sunny Deol it was a super flop. It finished off his stardom in comparison to Shah Rukh’s.
Today, people want to see a film overwhelmingly for its ad campaign. The hype has to excite them sufficiently to rush to see a film on the very first day of its release. The days of word-of-mouth publicity, boosting a film’s collections, are almost over. Films do not survive that long at the multiplexes, the curiosity in them dying soon after the opening weekend. Once there would be silver jubilees, then 100 days, then 50 days. Now the biggest hits are reduced to a stay of only two to three weeks, and that too totalling good business only over the weekends.
This does not really tell on a film’s quality. It only reflects on the distribution system which aims to create as much hype as possible for the release weekend — or extract the revenue as fast as possible. This obviously comes from the marketing psychology of consumer products. Once a film-maker would be happy that the tickets of his film weren’t available. Now, the distribution system works on the principle that anyone who wants to see a film should be able to buy a ticket immediately.
Coke’s marketing principle is that it should be within the arm’s reach of every consumer, in his “fridge or in a neighbourhood store”. This is pretty much what film marketing and distribution are moving towards. A film may be an art form for the director and possibly for some viewers, but today film-making is treated as a consumer oriented product manufacturing process.
One will be surprised to know that I did not make any money on Rangeela but I made a lot of money on Daud. Trading practices in 1995 were so disorganised that I didn’t get my due money for Rangeela. But since at the grass roots, distributors knew how much money Rangeela had made, they bought Daud for very high prices. Since the film didn’t work for the prices paid, they lost money. Ironically, in commercial terms Rangeela was a flop for me and Daud was a hit.
It is generally believed that Satya is a hit but the truth is that Jungle collected more than three times its money. That’s because Jungle released in many more theatres and it had a much bigger opening across the country. Satya with its smaller scale release did well only in places like Mumbai, Nizam and Delhi city. In Nizam, Satya collected `1.25 crore, Jungle `1.75 crore. In many small towns, Satya was pulled out of the theatres on the second or third day due to lack of audience.
So, is Jungle a better film than Satya? Not necessarily because many of those who saw Jungle might not have liked it. Most of those who saw Satya might have liked it. Today everyone I meet says that Satya is my best work. But in the same year as Satya, the Salman Khan film Bandhan, directed by K. Murali Mohan, was a far bigger hit. Its collections must have been at least 10 times more than that of Satya. I doubt whether Salman Khan even remembers Bandhan. But Satya is remembered, it was a super hit for me in terms of my credibility as a filmmaker.
Also, no film ever loses money, literally, the way people think it does. It’s often said that 90 per cent of the films lose money in the industry. That’s not how it happens. The money just exchanges hands. When someone says that `20 crore have been wasted on a certain film, what does it really mean? It means that those `20 crore went into the hands of the technicians, equipment suppliers, actors and various others whose livelihoods and that of their families was dependent on the film during its production.
So the money doesn’t just evaporate, it goes into pockets. What flops is the intention of the guy who invested `20 crore to make a profit. In case of a film which has gone massively over-budget, the producer might lose money, the director and actors their credibility, but 297 of the 300 connected with the project will have made money.
I can answer the question if I personally liked a particular film or not. But since I don’t know the finances, the expectations and the viewpoints of the various people involved in it, I can never ever answer the question whether it’s a hit or a flop. Because in this business, many times a flop can be a hit and a hit can be a flop. Strange but true.