The Big ‘Kalki 2898 AD and the Small ‘Laapataa Ladies’: Hits or Flops?

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In today’s era of complex and unique deals between producers and distributors, and corporate entities like Jio Studios and Viacom 18 flourishing in the field, the box-office math has become unusually complex.

Take the example of what I consider is the finest film of the year so far, Laapataa Ladies. As per statistics, the film is a success, which means its investment has come back with a small profit. The film, unlike Munjya, which had a higher production cost but got much higher returns, is not a super-hit or hit. These terminologies, respectively, are meant for films that recover thrice or more of the investment and twice that amount (ROI, or return on investment).

Figures—and figures!

In the best pattern of the Hindi film industry, figures are randomly thrown all over the media, especially the digital, and people lap it up as gospel, as most of today’s audience of all ages are obsessed with a  film’s collection rather than its merits, exceptions of course proving the rule. As a result, we have 4 kinds of films today:

1. Good films that succeed!
2. Bad films that fail!
3. Good films that fail!
4. Bad films that succeed!

The Laapataa Ladies Math!

Laapataa Ladies made a lifetime collection of Rs. 20.24 crore, entailing a distributor’s share of a little over Rs. 8 crore. Aamir Khan made the film at Rs. 11 crore and sold it to Jio Studios for Rs. 20 crore. With this deal, Aamir Khan Productions made a table profit of Rs. 9 crore, which meant an ROI of 181 percent —for his production company, that is.

Jio Studios then spent around Rs. 5 crore on Print & Publicity, and the total budget for them was Rs. 25 crore. But Jio recovered Rs. 21 crore from the sale of the film’s digital rights, satellite rights and music rights. Their theatrical share was around Rs. 8 crore (as above), taking the total revenue to Rs. 29 crore against their cost of Rs. 25 crore.

“Due to healthy non-theatrical deals”, reports Pinkvilla, the distributors (who are the main entities that decide success or failure of a movie) will entail a small profit of about Rs. 4 crore, or an ROI of 116 percent. This was helped by the film’s sustained (at the lower level) run in cinemas. With the figures going past 100 percent of Jio Studios’ investment, albeit along with non-theatrical revenues, the film is thus a ‘break-even’ (with a small profit) success. Taken by purely theatrical returns, the film is a flop!

Adds Pinkvilla, “The film fetched a good digital deal owing to the brand name of Aamir Khan, and the theatrical run at lower levels reinstated the fact that the film has been appreciated by a very niche section of audience in metros.”

But a non-star-cast film doing a business of Rs. 20 crore is great, and if Jio Studios had bought the film at a lower cost, Laapataa Ladies would have earned a higher tag of success.

Over here, we are ignoring the overseas collections (which are always in Gross Collections (including moneys that do not come to distributors, like taxes), which are a meager Rs. 1.16 crore.

The diametrically-opposite big film: Kalki 2898 AD

Now let us discuss the box-office economics of Kalki 2898 AD. It’s budget is touted all over as Rs. 600 crore. Now this is an ambiguous figure,  as we do not know whether it is just production cost (for Vyjayanti Movies) or acquisition cost or acquisition cost including print and publicity with other revenues to part-offset the costs for the distributors.

Assuming that it is the last option (as it should be), the latest figures (on the online portal Mint, updated to the morning of July 16) suggest an India nett of Rs. 584.45 crore and an overseas gross of Rs. 253.7 crore. This corroborates the quotes of trade analysts, who have reiterated that the film is doing better in the pan-Indian Hindi version (Rs. 255.15 crore) than in the South Indian languages!

On the other hand, to be ‘real’, most Hindi film collections after the arrival of the 100-Crore Club are exaggerated and it is safe to assume a minimum of 10 percent escalation in every ‘hit’ film’s figures over the true collections!

Therefore, despite the hype, the film has just earned approximately Rs. 700 crore-plus nett and counting. The producers have claimed a collection of Rs. 1000 crore a day or two ago, but those figures did not substantiate collections then.

Finally, the film will have to collect Rs. 1200 crore nett to be adjudged a ‘Hit’ as per ROI, even if the footfalls are very good. Needless to grouch again, a lesser production cost or lowered acquisition cost would have tagged this film as a far bigger hit or even super-hit. But reportedly, Amazon Prime Video has purchased the Telugu and Tamil rights for Rs. 200 crore and Netflix the Hindi rights for Rs. 175 crore. Now these account for over 60 percent of the budget. We have also heard that the Hindi version was sold to AA Films for Rs. 110 crore, and so the film has already made a profit for the Hindi version.

Profits or Footfalls?

As lovers of cinema, however, the eternal debate on what is a hit or a flop boils down to the question: Should overall profit (including extra-theatrical revenues) decide this fact or should theatrical collections, which are directly proportionate to footfalls (that is, the number of tickets sold) make for the verdict ?

After all, most films, even now, are made for theatrical watch, not for later views.