These days, it’s every producer’s dream to reach the 100-crore mark because it means that the audience have accepted the film.
Important disclaimer: The above-mentioned films were not out when this post was written. So, whatever I am going to write next is not a comment on the performance, business strategies or the market policies of the above two films. I have not even considered these two films and technically they cannot be considered because they have not been released.
During the era of the golden oldies, stars looked forward to their films completing golden jubilees and silver jubilees. These days, it’s every producer’s dream to reach the 100-crore mark because it means that the audience have accepted the film. This also means that the film will spell huge profits for the producers and likewise for the distributors.
Every trade analyst worth their figure will be firmly fixing their eyes on the box office performances of the two upcoming Eid releases.
Are all box-office figures real?
Two months back, Twitter timelines were abuzz after angry exchanges between filmmaker Sanjay Gupta and trade analyst Komal Nahata. The conversation on Twitter revolved around the box office performance of Sanjay’s film, Shootout At Wadala. The sharp and sarcastic exchanges between the filmmaker and the trade-analyst were reported on some websitestoo.
While Komal claimed that the distributors of the film have lost money, Sanjay Gupta claimed that Komal was not presenting the correct picture.
Either or neither of them may be right, I don’t want to comment on that. But it is true that some box-office figures are allegedly fudged. It has become a regular occurrence now-a-days that some filmmakers and a section of trade experts hand-out a certain figure while another section paints a completely different picture of a film’s box office performance.
If the film’s box office figures are out there in the open then how come people in the trade differ so widely?
A trade expert I spoke to tried to provide an answer to the confusion. According to him, a set of trade experts get their figures from the producers while another set gets their figures from the distributors. Interestingly, some filmmakers try to impress the audience by inflating their box officer numbers, while the distributors try to suppress the figures because it gives out an exact indication of their earnings.
Till date, the film press usually don’t collect box office figures directly from the distributors while some production houses are ever ready to part with the information.
Please remember that I am not saying everybody in Bollywood fudges figures but it is alleged that some of them definitely do and for obvious reasons, I am not going to pin-point any of them even though I might know some of the names.
How are the numbers fudged? And why?
*Disclaimer
We have not paid Soumyadipta Banerjee for this article and that we have picked this article from his blog at www.bollywoodjournalist.com.
