Editorial : Few folks of TFI should get over cringing at reviews !

Most of the discussion in Telugu film industry revolves around reviews and the talk spreading in social media. Earlier, Allu arjun vented his anger on critics ,few days ago Tarak stirred the pot in Jai Lava Kusa vijayotsavam.There are many reasons why telugu audience are looking for reviews before watching any movie. Those who oppose reviews doesn’t want to talk or knowingly ignore about these. We wanted to highlight the reasons why general public look for reviews.

1. Ticket price: First and foremost reason why audience look for reviews is price gouging some of the Telugu film makers are doing. Baahubali premieres were priced at $40 and SPYder was $25. So, if a family of four has to go to a movie you are talking about $100 to $200. Given the ticket prices most families cannot afford to watch a movie every week. So they allocate budget on average 1 or 2 movies per month. So they want to be 100% sure they are picking the right movie and so they look for reviews. Same deal in India.

Even a very normal theatre has Rs 100/- as ticket price. For a family of four it costs Rs. 400/-. Add to that, the cost of conveyance to the theatre and the cost of snacks in the interval. After all, for our audience, movie watching is a full-fledged experience. If they prefer to watch it in a decent multiplex, cost is almost double. So a family (of 4) has to spend anywhere between 700/- to 1000/- for one movie. Nowadays, when booking a mobile pouch worth of Rs 200/- also, people are checking for ratings. Why they shouldn’t do the same for movies.

Also there have been instances where the producers or heroes of the movie requested the governments concerned to allow them to sell the tickets for high prices quoting the high amounts spent for making that film. And, the governments sometimes obliged them too. With entertainment getting more and more expensive, viewer also becoming more and more selective and he browses reviews to choose which one to watch. Is it not fair?

2. Balloning budgets and lack of quality : Can’t heroes and directors work towards a profit sharing model and bring costs under control and hence ticket prices? If heros, directors and producers want to extract last penny from market, audience also want to make sure they are wise when picking the film to spend on.

3. Should reviewers delay publishing the reviews ?

A straight question to all those who oppose reviews. When you buy products online, don’t you look for reviews ? Or when you go to a restaurant do you check reviews and go? In today’s mobile life, every product that we consume are dependent on reviews. When we read multiple reivews to go for a $10 lunch, why are audience blamed for reading reviews from multiple sites when they are spending $100 on a movie. Ok let’s assume hypothetically all the websites will not publish review for first two days. But does TFI want to shut down Twitter and Facebook also during that time or only websites? What about plethora of opinions on social media?

4. Film industry needs reviews: Irony is that no one in film industry talks when a small movie is well reviewed and promoted. We at Telugu360 extensively promoted movies such as Fidaa (3.5) , Arjun Reddy (3.75) , Pellichoopulu (3.25) – not that we are the only reason, but we did our part. Without reviews, those movies wouldn’t have become popular “instantaneously” . In fact, even for a film like Baahubali, the makers had special shows for Hindi media to get positive reviews out before hand. So positive reviews are a fair game, but will you not allow negative unbiased opinions ?

Bottom line: This is the time for our film industry to learn so let the reviewers do their job while filmmakers do theirs.