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Why Don't Movies Run for long these days?

Topic started by Unmai (@ 24.130.233.129) on Fri Aug 9 11:23:20 EDT 2002.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Do movies run for 100 days these days? If not? why? Cable TV or Bad quality or Video Piracy?
I think only people who are in rural areas watch movies in theaters. I can recall some of the movies that ran well. Kamalhasan was never considered to be a masala hero. In Came Sakalakala vallavan. It ran for 250 days. His market picked up. Rajini was already a superstar.
Around the same time Payum Puli came. It ran only for 100 days. Some of my classmates who were rajini fans became kamal fans because of Sakalakala Vallavan. Kamal came up with another hit in the form of Thoongathe Thambi Thoongathe which ran for 250 days. Munthanai Mudichu ran for 365 days. Mudhal Mariyadhai and Sindhu bhairavi ran for more than 100 days. Salangai Oli ran for 200 days i guess. Payanangal Mudivathillai ran for 175 days. Naan Padum Paadal ran for 100 days.
Vaidegi Kathirundal ran for 100 days. Udhya Geetham ran for 100 days. Poove Poochudava started slowly and ran for 200 days. Thendrale Ennai Thodu ran for more than 100 days. It was a dream period. Mouna Raagam ran for 175 days. Fazil made an impressive debut in tamil movie with Varusham 16. It ran for 100 days in 15 theaters. Even junk movies like Naan Sigappu Manithan and Kakki Chattai ran for 100 days.
Then came Karagattakaran. It broke many records.
It ran for 365 days. Maniratnam enjoyed great success. I don't think movie don't run that well these days. Why is that?

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Responses:

• From: Venki (@ 166.102.198.8) on: Fri Aug 9 12:14:15 EDT 2002
  
  One main reason is the Aricha Maavu/Masala formula of the present day producers and directors. Our producers main concern has become marketing and meeting the minimum guarantee. That is why even a movie like Azhaki happened to have a dappankutthu song.
  
  
  
• From: Fliflo (@ 146.186.113.218) on: Fri Aug 9 12:28:59 EDT 2002
  
  Unmai:
  
  You are absolutely right. I too was caught in this thought on many occasions. I would attribute to 1st and 3rd reasons. Of them, major influence could be from Cable Networks. Taking only cities and towns into account, almost 80-90% of people have TV maintain Cable connection at their homes. This revolution started especially after 1987, and almost 50-60% houses around mine started having them for relatively cheap fee. That time, I remember, the talk of the town was "Inimel Cinemavellam Veetleya Paarkalaam". First came DD, then SUN & RAJ followed by VIJAY, then JAYA and now countless in numbers. Initially, they telecasted only old & intermediate movies that too with so many Boost/Bournvita ads in-between. They keep reviewing their telecast policies coz of survival, competition and for various reasons including politics. As the cinema ticket prices were in rise, people started preferring cable, trying to put money equation in balance. Many theaters started running into losses. To validate this, some important ones were shut down. Many are on their way. This crisis added up in its intensity with actors and other artists demanding a huge salary. For example, my friend is producing a movie for 1.25 crores, for which, he could afford only a third class actor and low rated musician. He is very much afraid of the net result, but keeps showing the chart that he would gain eventually. The uprise in TV serials and their "magnetization effect" have a great influence on a theater survival. Many actors/directors feel that TV can offer them a constant source of income than movies. So a balance is on the line now.
  
  
• From: Unmai (@ 24.130.233.129) on: Fri Aug 9 13:24:47 EDT 2002
  
  TV serials are prime reason for this trend i believe. In hollywood they have had this cable for years. But still 'Signs' racked 60 million dollar on first day. How is that possible?
  As Venki pointed out, the 'minimum requirements' factor should be disregarded by directors. They should focus on the storyline. Fazil's movies are still high quality movies. Maniratnam is a great director. But his choice of story is pretty unconventional and erratic. Iruvar didn't run well. There are two aspects in every film. Character development. Plot development. One should not supercede other. It should be balanced.
  Above all the music. Only when these three things combine you get good movies. Sixth sense, Signs were all hits because of these combination.
  Maniratnam used to give them in right proportions.
  But oflate his movies make less impact probably due to his choice of subjects. His general liking to make movies peripheral to some burning issue is not going to help him. He has dealt with Kashmir, Bombay underground, Srilanka and Suicide bombers. What next? ULFA? Veerappan? Music has been a huge disappointment in his movies. I guess everybody is depending on comedy movies. Kamal has done Thenali, Pancha... and Pammal... in a short period.
  
  
• From: Fliflo (@ 146.186.113.218) on: Fri Aug 9 13:30:25 EDT 2002
  
  Well..I missed to say one thing. The above factor is more dominant when the movie quality is bad (includes what Venki said). Assuming the movie is perfect in every sense, still I don't expect the movie to run for 100 days. So quality/story is an "inherent factor" deciding the how long the movie runs in one stretch. At first, this decides the life time and secondly the exterior factors that are mentioned above. In any case, no movie runs for 100 days in one stretch now-a-days.
  
  
• From: Fliflo (@ 146.186.113.218) on: Fri Aug 9 13:39:43 EDT 2002
  
  "But still 'Signs' racked 60 million dollar on first day"
  
  Unmai:OK..see what happens after 10 days. Collection on the first day is a different issue from running in 100 days in 1 stretch. In my feeling, Hollywood movies have a bigger crisis than ours. I donno whether you know that about 30% of hollywood money is made from India. Not many movies in Hollywood have ever surpassed 50 days. This collection factor depends on many mutually inclusive things that includes storyline, performers, value among people, how many theaters they have been released and importantly dollar-rupee conversion factor.
  
  
• From: MPR (@ 134.129.91.46) on: Fri Aug 9 13:54:21 EDT 2002
  
  Fliflo:
  
  Hollywood movies don't have to run for 100 days to be a hit. Almost 50% of their revenue comes from video rentals. And of course a lot of crappy movies are being produced by Hollywood production companies with couple of good movies every year. Hollywood also faced the same crisis when TV shows were introduced in early 70s (?). So they came up with big budget movies and made people come to the theater. But of course the piracy thing was not here :)
  
  
• From: thiru (@ 63.169.243.35) on: Fri Aug 9 13:54:55 EDT 2002
  
  
  unmai,
  
  Cable TV or Bad quality or Video Piracy?
  Combination of all the 3... Further ppl are bored with repetitive stories and subjects...
  Cable tv: We live in a different generation and the youth are more attracted to movies with big names and banners..the trailers in different channels now a days make you watch the movie someway or the other. Of all the movies you had mentioned, I remember I saw most of them on Theatres... Now we dont have the patience to go to a movie other than rajini's or kamal's or good directors like manirathnam or shankar...We have other ways of watching movies like cable tv, video, vcd and dvd....
  
  Bad quality : Further some directors and actors have not really changed as years have gone by.. Karthik, vijayakanth and prabhu are making movies which they used to make in the early and mid 90s... not that ajith, vijay and madhavan give great movies but u get to see atleast a young hero and young heroine with a few good songs in those movies whereas u find 40 year old guys like karthik and captain dancing with 20 year old heroines and making stereotypic movies.... I saw punnagai desam yesterday and I couldnt sit thru the movie.. Its a combination of 20 old tamil movies... Assistant or associate directors (as i should say) after making two or 3 movies with a big director, come out and try to make a movie of their own and copy & paste scenes from different movies which sometimes turns out to be a success.... Quality of the movies have gone down a lot... I saw 'bollywood calling' two weeks back and whatever is said in that movie is true... u dont need to narrate the story.. tell the actor that the scene is the same one as the X movie, and he would do it........ppl like balachander and baradhi raja have failed to live with the generation and they cant really continue on with this sort of movies like PP annd AA..When u look at the rajini and kamal, their popularity is going up rather than coming down becos they know what would reach the audience and what would not..... Though the knowledgable educated audience like us want to see good movies (with different stories), the B and C class think that they need their money to the worth spending for.. They need 5 songs, 4 fights and comedy sequences..... and the vast majority of the tamil movie audience belong to this group and we cant complain...
  
  Video piracy : another important thing that really spoils some movies... Instead of speding 50 rs for 1 ticket, a camera-print as we used to say would be availble for 10 rs and 5 ppl can watch that... forget the quality and sound, but ultimate thing is u get to watch the movie speding 1/5th of the price... Also most of the middle class would prefer spending 10 rs for a mediocre movie with bad quality video rather than spending 50 rs in a theatre.. I havent seen any movie in thiruttu vcd yet... i hope its equally bad...
  In late 80s and early 90s, we used to get cheap audio cassettes for 8rs and 10 rs... It would have a combination of two good movies...... I have purchased a lot of them and have suffered it.. Though the original cassette was 28 rs those days for one movie, I still have that cassette back home whereas the 8 rs cassettes were horrible... The same is applicable for this camera print too... good movies often look bad becos of the video piracy ....Unless u cut down video piracy, movies wont fetch lots of money.......
  
  I also find a few ppl comparing with hollywood.. Hollywood is a different scene altogether.. u dont have video piracy here.. a bad movie is definitely a flop no matter who is the hero.... Lots of theatres and lots & lots of shows on a single day... spiderman, star wars and signs had 15 shows on 2 screens during the first week.. This is just a marketing strategy and by doing this u raise expectations and 60% of the movie fans watch the movie in the first week itself... The remaining 40% watch it depending on the quality during the next few days.. In our kollywood, we have 4 shows in 4 or 5 theatres on one day which makes the movie run for 100 days... and i remember actors giving money to theatre owners just for making the movie run for 100 days or more... That doesnt happen in hollywood....
  
  
• From: MPR (@ 134.129.91.46) on: Fri Aug 9 13:59:53 EDT 2002
  
  thiru:
  
  a bad movie is definitely a flop no matter who is the hero....
  
  No, this is not 100% true. Even bad movies make money here. Example: Martin Lawrence's movies.
  
  
• From: thiru (@ 63.169.243.35) on: Fri Aug 9 14:04:57 EDT 2002
  
  MPR.... martain lawrence has a separate set of kallu audience... in hollywood even the worst movie would make 3 million unlike kollywood.. Vannilla sky topped the chart in the first weekend but it was a flop.. It made the money but was branded a failure..
  
  

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