Suresh Babu recently convened a press meet. He is the presenter of the recent movie “Mental madhilo” which bagged critical acclaim but not so good collections. In this meet Suresh Babu spoke about various issues related to film industry like issues with digital service providers, satellite system and percentage system in theater exhibition.
Suresh Babu spoke about Mental Madhilo movie for which he is presenter. Despite getting good ratings, the movie did not perform up to expectations or potential. He attributed 2 reasons for that – one, Satellite and two, the title. He told, the satellite system has changed Telugu film industry completely. Initially movies used to get telecast in TV after one year or so. Now, in one month after release movie is aired on TV. So audience not willing to come to theater to watch the movie as they think they can watch the movie on TV very soon. Second reason he mentioned is the title of the movie. He told “Mental madhilo” title may be apt for the story but that could not excite audience enough to drag them towards theaters. But his argument about satellite system has a flaw. Many small movies get almost their total investments only from satellite and the channels wont pay such hefty amounts if they are not allowed to telecast the movie as early as possible after the release.
He made these comments in success meet of the movie “Mental Madhilo”. But he made some satirical comments on success meets of the movies in general. He questioned, how can some makers convene success meets on first day of the release. Such success meets should be convened after some days of successful running of the movie, he remarked.
He also talked about “Theater percentage system”. This topic has been discussed for several years and late Dasari was always vocal on this issue. He told percentage system is good for small movies but big movies prefer rental system. For example if a small movie is made in 1 Cr and it collects 4 crores, there will be a tax of approximately 1 crore and remaining 3 crores will be on percentage basis between producer and exhibitor. If it is on 60-40 (for example), producer will get 1.8 crore and exhibitor will get 1.2 crores. But if it is a medium budget movie made in 10 crore, collects 40 crores, tax will be 10 crore, producer will get 18 crore and exhibitor will get 12 crore. But big producers prefer to deal it on rental system – in which they will pay approximately 3 crores (against 12 crores in percentage system) only to exhibitors in rental system. But if same rental system applied to small films collecting 4 crores, they will also have to pay same 3 crores which is the total collection minus tax leaving them with 1 crore loss of investment. So ALWAYS small producers want percentage system and ALWAYS big producers want rental system. Theater owners want a uniform system whether rental system for all movies or percentage system for all movies. Suresh Babu says industry needs to sit and resolve this issue.
He agreed that there is no unity in the industry but he called for united action from the entire industry to resolve these issues.
