Movie in Theater or Satellite TV?

Should I watch a movie in multiplex or watch it on TV in two weeks? They are showing movies on TV within a month or even within weeks of a release in the theater. So is it worth going to the multiplex?

Main aur Mrs. Khanna was released in DTH(direct to home) less than a week after its release, causing tension, as a lot of exhibitors threatened to pull the film out of movie theaters in protest

You will not find slogans and stars clamoring to say “Please watch it on big screen only” because YOU CAN WAIT if you want to. In four-five weeks, you will be able to watch the movie in your television. Not a bad idea, saving 300 bucks in a multiplex and blowing another 100 in snacks. Imagine if a family of four goes, you are bankrupt by a cool Rs. 1600 bucks. Imagine the fate if the movie sucks! Now you can save that Rs. 1400 and watch the film in your home television or even in YouTube like 3 Idiots is reported to do.

You are already seeing it happening:

1. The most hyped movie of 2009, Blue became a noteworthy flop, and found its way in Colors Channels barely a month after its theatrical release.

2. Ashutosh Gowariker’s What Your Rashee and Karan Johar’s Wake Up Sid was aired on cable legally weeks after its release

3. Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, which is one of the biggest hits of 2009, surprisingly to some, premiered on Colors Channel on 27th December 2009.

Paa and De Dana Dan’s satellite rights have also been taken by satellite channel and you may be getting the good news soon.

It is understandable if new movies that are flops are aired on television, but why are the hit movies being aired so soon? Not that viewers are complaining but for distributor’s sake, why so soon? Here are the reasons:

1. Shelf Life: Only three movies have had a miraculously long shelf life in this decade: Mahesh Bhatt’s Murder(2004), Rajkumar Hirani’s Lagey Raho Munnabhai (2006) and Aamir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par(2007). But with video sharing, torrent downloads, piracy, mobile videos improving by leaps and bounds, it is difficult to have even the world’s greatest movie run for three months now. People now wish to see a movie on the big screen only if it is a technological marvel. Since the shelf life of films are getting shorter with every passing month, producers are looking for optimizing revenue in the shortest period possible

2. High cost of movie production: Though Blue had a stupendous opening, it flopped not entirely because of content but because of high cost. The producers found it tough to recover the cost involved in making and marketing it. So logically, they decided to premiere the film on television to minimize their losses.

3. Coming to the point why the hit Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahan released so quickly in spite of running in theaters for quite some, the producer is aiming television for revenue optimization. Says Ramesh Taurani, producer of Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani,”” Eighty per cent of the revenue you earn is in the first week , and only 20 per cent comes from the full run. Besides my film is being screened in only three cinema halls across the city.” He adds ,” The same revenue that you erned over 25 weeks in ealier years is now obtained in jut four days, thanks to the prints multiplying manifold” In a nutshell, theater revenue earned, it really does not matter if films are out on other platforms in a short time”

4. Releasing films on satellite television has added to distributor’s woes because distributors can no longer afford to buy exorbitantly priced films on an outright basis. These days movies are released by producers themselves. Big companies like Reliance Big Cinema and Tips are into both production and distribution

5. Look at the options that producers have to capitalize and optimize their revenue: home video, cable video or DTH, video on demand, video sharing(You Tube), online premiere, web cast, pay per view, mobile download and IPTV. The DTH market is all set to double within a couple of years. You can watch high quality prints without ad breaks. With the advent of 3 G and increased speeds of broadband, there will be tough competition in the information superhighway. With superior bandwidth and high speed, you will be able to see moves online without streaming problems.

Theater owners are not exactly happy with the turn of events and think that producers are only ‘killing’ their revenues by abandoning theaters. A COO of a prominent multiplex says , “ What one earns from cinema houses is three times more of what one gets through DTH. Besides the shelf life of good quality films will always be long.”

The day is not far away when movies may be released simultaneously across all platforms.

Paul Scrhader, Hollywood writer-director who wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull told Times of India, “These are not good days for global cinema or Bollywood. With alternative media emerging to watch cinema and theater prices going high, a permanent change will soon happen. I don’t know what form or shape it will take, but things certainly wont go abck to being normal. I bileve that like novels, even the movie business is going to be a 20th century phenomenon.”