Dying to watch the latest Rajnikanth starrer ‘Kabali’ at a theatre near you in Delhi? You are not in a minority. Regional movies are increasingly performing well in terms of revenue, and are getting more viewership in their non-traditional markets.
According to analysts at KPMG, the domestic movie collections grew 8.5% in 2015 to reach Rs. 101 billion and this was mainly driven by non-bollywood movies, as the growth of bollywood was almost flat.
For instance, Baahubali, a Telugu movie that earned more than Rs 6 biilion worldwide, was shown in about 2,000 screens in northern India, and they contributed to 25 per cent to its overall domestic collections.
In the July to September 2015 period, about 29% revenue of PVR, one of the largest multiplex chains in India, was from regional.
“We see the revenues from regional movies are growing at 15 to 20% in the last two years,” said Kamal Gianchandani, CEO, PVR Pictures and Chief of Strategy for PVR Ltd. He said that increase in number of screens, strong stories and good marketing are driving this.
PVR also saw a lesser-budget tamil movie like ‘O Kadhal Kanmani’ performing well, when shown with English subtitles, in markets like Bombay, Delhi and Gujrat.
{{/usCountry}}PVR also saw a lesser-budget tamil movie like ‘O Kadhal Kanmani’ performing well, when shown with English subtitles, in markets like Bombay, Delhi and Gujrat.
{{/usCountry}}It is not just south Indian movies. KPMG says Marathi, Punjabi and Guajarati movies also do well.
Marathi movies grew by 45 - 50% in 2015, to reach around Rs 1.5 billion. The number of Marathi films releasing every year has risen to 70-80 from just 10-15 a decade ago.
According to A FICCI- KPMG report, Indian film industry is expected to grow 10.5 % to Rs 227 billion by 2020.