Before we begin, it is important that we look at what Mr. Rakesh Roshan said in an interview with India Today, as that is what this letter is based upon.
“What is happening is that the audience is still not coming back to the theatres, so that is a big question mark for me. Krrish is going to be a big film. The world has become smaller and kids today are used to seeing Hollywood superhero films that are made on budgets of like $500-600 million. Meanwhile, we have a small budget of Rs. 200-300 crore in comparison.”
“How to give that look to the film? I can, of course, decide to have four action sequences instead of 10, but that action has to match up with the quality. The VFX quality needs to be good. We are seeing how the budget and production costs can all be maintained. Big films that are released these days are not doing so well… We are absolutely ready to take the step forward. However, looking at the situation today where films are not doing well and collections are not matching the production costs, we are not immediately looking at it. It is going to happen, but not for a year. Probably after that.”
Now let’s begin..
The biggest problem today is that producers are still stuck in the old mindset and ways of working. You are able to see that films are not working, but you are not able to see that in general, the quality of films have gone down? We are living in an era of content overdose, where going to the theatres is not the only source of entertainment.
Still at the same time we have Pathaan that did over ₹1000 crores. Then there are smaller films like Zara Hatke Zara Bachke and Kantara. We have Hollywood films like Avatar 2, Oppenheimer, FastX, Mission Impossible 7, and we also have our KGF 2, RRR and Drishyam 2, which did very well. You should be looking at both sides of the box office.
Trust in Content
Kya apko apni film pe bharosa nahi hai? It’s not about the budget. If the film is bad, it won’t matter even if you put $500-600M. It will bomb at the box office. Lagaya na Adipurush ne ₹500-600cr. Kya hua? Hollywood na sahi India ki toh sabse mehengi film thi na. Only content matters, warna Marvel neeche chala gaya sir, aur kitna bada example chahiye?
The most important aspects will be the story and screenplay, then the direction and treatment of the film. Yes, even more than VFX. We are Indians and we can let go of a few things if we love the content. No film does perfect VFX in India yet we have very successful films not just in the last two years, but since decades.
Can you not see the buzz around Jawan, Salaar, Leo, Tiger 3, Animal and Dunki? Why is that?
Budget? Or because the people are really rooting for the content from their actor and director?
The Power of Franchise
Sir, you have the power of a big and loved franchise. Brahmastra hai apke pass. It means you already have a loyal fanbase which any new film will not have. Even many franchises don’t. And trust me, the kids you are talking about won’t come to the theatres. Real Krrish fans ab sab bade ho chuke hain. Hum ane wale hain theatres, humara nostalgia hai, humara hero hai Krrish. Jab aapne abhi Koi Mil Gaya theatre mein firse release kari ’20 saal baad’ toh aapko ye realize hona chahiye tha.
Case study: People paid from ₹1000-₹2300 to watch Oppenheimer in IMAX screens. And it grossed ₹100crores nett in India in two weeks. It was not the kids, it was not the families, it was the young, earning members of the society (mostly) who bought these tickets. Wahi jo Koi Mil Gaya ke time pe Jadoo ki height ke the.
Krrish 4 will create havoc at the box office just because of the franchise name. Aur content accha hua toh koi limit hi nahi hai sir. Not every franchise has that kind of power.
Marketing
The marketing of a movie needs to be very strategic no matter if you have a hugh budget for it or not. One big problem is that nobody understand the content, movie marketing and audience together. There are different departments and each work individually. Everyone has there own set of rules and way of working and they will come together but one of them will always be missing or won’t know what the other is doing.
I have been observing and running experiments since a long time now. A lot of the times when a film is coming and a studio should have done something but they dont, I put out that kind of content and observe the audience’s reaction. For example, look at this reel below –
YRF did not even reveal the logo themselves. They just released it via media journalists and half the world was not even sure if it was fan-made or official. My audience was asking me and I had no clue. It took a while to realize it was legit, though everyone was sharing it. What was the need for this? Adhe time yahi hota hai “source” ke naam pe news reveal karwate hain media se. Isi reason se fake news bhi circulate hoti hai. Just imagine if such a video was released by the studio for the Spy Universe logo reveal.
Been doing such things for years now. My 30K+ audience would want me to do marketing for films. But I don’t know if that is even possible. Studios don’t want to budge from their beliefs and that is a major reason why they decide things in offices and are disconnected from the audience.
Promo Material
Most of the teasers and trailers are just a compilation of the scenes over title slides and music. Story wahi reveal ho jati hai bas fill in the blanks ke liye janta nahi jana chahti theatres. They feel, ott pe ayegi tab dekh lenge. Coz they are not excited. People will not spend their time, extra money on ticket, travel and food just to get bored in the end. Most promo material don’t work and most of the content is outdated.
The number of creative marketing done on digital or on ground is very rare. Even if they do something unique, they do not utilize them much. Most fizzle out in a day or two. Posters are again a major problem. Fan-arts are better than official posters 90% of the time. And they do not even have the HD pictures from the photoshoots like studios have. Why is creativity lacking in professionals?
Another useless marketing technique is city tours. This was useful 10-15 years ago when internet was not so prevalent and you had to tell people in whatever way possible that a film is coming. Studios are still doing it today on large scale.
I heard Karan Johar in some interview in Dec-Jan talking about how city tours are useless. Those 4000 people who gather at colleges or malls, out of those not even 400 or 40 would turn up in theatres. But then his studio goes out and does the exact same thing at the time of Selfiee. We all know the result.
This proves what I said above that different departments work in their own ways. Karan may be the owner of Dharma but he is not involved in every single process in his studio. Nobody can be. But from this we can figure out that there is a problem and nobody is even talking about it.
VFX
The problem with VFX is not budgets or good vfx companies or good artists. Yes, we are way behind Hollywood but that is not even the problem.
Kisi ne kabhi VFX artists se baat ki hai? Janne ki koshish ki hai ki problem kya hai? Maine ki hai. Sabse badi problem hai VFX supervisors and managers/team leaders. There is a diconnect between the creative and technical teams. The supervisors and managers are the bridge, who should be telling the producer or director if something is not possible or if they need to adjust their creative process to make way for the technical part.
[For example, the pre-defined (pre-vis) shots vs deciding the shots on location. (Those who understand this filmmaking process will get it, for others I’ll write a separate article on it later)].
But boss se kaun behas kare. Naukri ka sawal hai. Then they pressurize the artists. Aur bhi bahaut kuch hota hai internally. Isliye quality girti hai. This is not an assumption, have spoken to several artists involved in vfx, some from even down south. Also, this is not the case 100% of the time so you will also be hearing some positive stories and those are also true.
Signing off
The studios need someone who understands each department and can keep everythig together from start to end. Directors and Producers cannot do that coz they are already involved in a lot of things. They need to hire someone who can look at things from the outside and glue them together. You need a separate guy only for this.
If that is not done, no matter what the budget is, no matter how many years you wait, the problem will not be solved. Whether it’s Krrish 4 or any other film, people will not come to the theatre unless they are excited. Because of the content overdose, this problem will only going to increase.
– A Movie Lover
