A recent research shows that regular movies clock lower audience interest in theatres.
When ‘Pathaan’ was released with a Rs.225 crores budget last month, fans and other movie-goers were running all over for tickets and were often disappointed with ‘houseful’ boards. But regular movies with smaller budgets and a less attractive star cast clock low audience interest in watching them at theatres.
A recent audience research conducted by Ormax Media, a Mumbai-based media consultancy firm shows that at the same price of Rs. 275, only 44 percent of the respondents showed interest in watching a regular film compared to 64 percent of people that were interested to watch a big-budget movie. To conduct the research on Hindi films, company used ‘Appeal’ as the main parameter. Appeal is defined as the audience percentage who are ‘definitely interested’ to watch a film they are aware of.
The research studied two types of Hindi movies—Event films (such as Pathaan and Tiger 3) and Regular films (such as Bhediya and Shehzada); and their appeals were measured at different ticket price levels. Event films are the blockbuster movies where the releases are considered to be major events. The appeal for an event film among the audience at Rs.50 ticket price level was 74 whereas, for the same price, it was 57 for a regular film.
Less number of audience preferred to watch a regular movie for Rs.275 ticket price range .
Nikith, a box office associate at Cinepolis at the Lulu Global Mall in Bengaluru said that the basic ticket price for any movie is more than Rs.200 with additional costs for food and beverages. However, ticket prices for movies vary based on the star cast, box office value, weekends, and various other factors.
Zakhir, Assistant Manager at Cinepolis at the Lulu Global Mall in Bengaluru said that if the ticket price of a ‘regular’ movie is decreased to Rs.100 or Rs.150, it will directly affect the box office collection.
“If the movie is not good and attractive, even if we reduce the ticket price, who wants to watch a movie and waste their two and a half hours,” he added.
Sometimes, there are exceptions as well. Nikith said that a Malayalam movie, Romancham was released a few weeks ago without a large budget or a huge star cast. But, it was screened there for more than a month because the audience liked it.
Another report by Ormax Media shows that India’s theatrical universe shrunk by 16.3 per cent and now stands at 122 million individuals compared to pre-pandemic levels of 145.7 million. Also, the median age of theatre-goers in India has dropped from 27.5 years in the pre-pandemic level to 24.1 years now.
Recently, two multiplex giants, PVR Cinemas and INOX successfully merged.The merger aims for a combined benefit in the range of Rs.225 crore in the next two years by adding another 180 to 200 cinema screens throughout the country. However, an analyst at Prabhudas Lilladher, a financial services organisation told The Mint, “In the current quarter (Q4FY23), apart from Pathaan that clocked over Rs. 500 crores, most Bollywood movies have not done well.”
Nived, a movie buff said that a large number of medium-budget movies are opting for an OTT or satellite release to avoid competition with huge movies. “For me, watching movies in theatres is not just about the story, but is a celebration. So, I would prefer to watch a low-budget movie once it becomes available on either OTT platforms or television because it is less expensive.”
Nikith added that rural people have the same view which is why the screenings and promotions are more focused on metro cities. Even with a declining audience, a film can make a larger profit in the cities. A Mint article mentions how movie distributors and theatre-owners opt for main cities because in such big cities more people will opt for watching movies from a theatre. In cities, they can at least hope to recover the distribution and advertising costs which is not guaranteed in rural areas.
