The market for Telugu cinema in Overseas has taken an upturn after the roaring success of SS Rajamouli‘s crowd pleasing epic Baahubali. The film notched up a gross of 7 Million dollars in its full run setting up a huge overseas record. Following suit, Prince Mahesh Babu’s recent outing Srimanthudu also raked in terrific numbers. It has notched up around 2.9 Million dollars. Recently released Nani’s ‘Bhale Bhale Magadivoi’ also set the cash registers ringing with its superb collections in the first week.
One would feel that the appetite for Telugu films in Overseas has thoroughly increased and no wonder the producers of the many upcoming films are demanding unreasonable prices for the distribution rights. Take for example, the producer of Trivikram-Nithin project is claiming 4 Crores for the Overseas rights. So, has the market for Telugu cinema really increased ? Are the overseas distributors advisable to bag the Overseas rights for huge prices ? Let us find out.
For Bahubali, so many factors worked in its favor.It was directed by the most successful filmmaker and also has an ensemble cast. In fact, it is a magnum opus made out of an extravagant budget. Srimanthudu was able to notch up solid numbers as Mahesh Babu carries an enviable fan following in Overseas. Many of his previous movies collected terrific figures and so did Srimanthudu. Moreover, both Bahubali and Srimanthudu garnered positive response right from the first day and it has helped both films to register superb collections.
Nani’s ‘Bhale Bhale Magadivoi’ is an exception as not all medium and low budget movies can repeat the magic as it did. We usually find very less number of movies like ‘Bhale Bhale Magadivoi’ which can have such a tremendous run at the box office. Although it collected good numbers,due to high number of screens rented for this movie, the rentals will cut down the share and the distributors may end up with average profits. Reportedly this movie’s USA share would be less than 3 crores even though it has grossed 7 crores.
Prospective overseas buyers who are excited about back to back success of recent telugu movies,please be reminded of the fact that if any movie fails to reach the expectation of audience the distributors will suffer huge loss. In India ,even if a movie is a failure, it will recover 70% of the investment in many cases but in USA if a movie fails it is hard to recover even 10% of the investment
So, the overseas distributors must be extra cautious while buying the overseas rights of the upcoming films and it is advisable that they should not fall into the lure of the Telugu movie producers.
