Kollywood 2018 Quarter 1 box office report: Padmaavat, Black Panther save day as Tamil films flounder

Editor’s note: As March has melted into April, Firstpost is bringing you an analysis of the box office performance of India’s leading film industries for the first quarter of 2018. In this first report, we’re looking at how the Tamil film industry has fared. Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities begins with “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, describing an era of great flux. This is a time of great flux for the Tamil film industry, collquially known as Kollywood, too. But one would be hard-pressed to describe it as “best”, since only the worst seems to be on display. This is indeed a bad patch for Kollywood. For 35 days now, beginning March 2018, there have been no new Tamil releases — thanks to the ongoing standoff between the Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) and theatres in the state. The bone of contention is the Virtual Print Fee (VPF), with producers asking for theatres to share the burden and also demanding a sunset clause from Digital Service Providers (DSP). [caption id=“attachment_4417957” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Kalakalappu 2 (bottom left) was the rare bright spot in Kollywood’s bleak quarter 1. Vikram’s Sketch (top left) and Suriya’s TSK both didn’t perform as phenomenally as expected.[/caption] However, Kollywood’s first quarter of 2018 has been lacklustre not just because of the absence of any new releases since March. Even the films that did release over January and February 2018 failed to make any impression at the box office. Theatres across Tamil Nadu have reported low footfalls — they ascribe it to the hike in ticket prices, implementation of GST and the additional eight percent Local Body Entertainment Tax that has been introduced by the state government. Of the 34 Tamil releases in Quarter 1, only Sundar C’s multi-starrer comedy  Kalakalappu 2 can be classified as a ‘hit’. The film had a good opening and continued in all major screens during the strike period for the last one month. In rural and semi-urban areas that depend entirely on Tamil content, Kalakalappu 2 (and to a certain extent, Naachiyaar) had a good run due to lack of new releases. With its theatrical rights sold for Rs 10.50 crore and having made around Rs 12 crore, Kalakalappu 2 is Kollywood’s number one hit of 2018. The low-budget Bala-directed Naachiyaar is also classified as an ‘above average’ hit , since it could break even from its Tamil Nadu theatrical collections alone. Among the big-ticket releases, Suriya’s _Thaanaa Serndha Koottam_  had a huge Pongal opening, but it couldn’t sustain the momentum. The film did turn out to be profitable for its producer, due in no small part to its satellite deal with Sun TV and Amazon Prime Videos’ bid for its streaming rights. The other major Pongal release — Vikram-starrer _Sketch_ — could not live up to expectations at the box-office. The rest of the releases are all failures. Meanwhile, Other Language Films (OLF), made more money from the Tamil Nadu market than Tamil films! The two big hits of 2018 at the Chennai box office were Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat and Disney’s _Black Panther_ . The buzz is that Padmavaat in 3D (Hindi and Tamil) has done extraordinary business in Tamil Nadu, grossing over Rs 20 crore. Trade sources say that the distributor share after all taxes and theatre-hire would be in the Rs 10-12 crore range — as much as a hit Kollywood film with a mid-level cast. Black Panther did reasonably well despite not being dubbed in Tamil. And the hold of OLF continued with the phenomenal opening of Ram Charan’s _Rangasthalam_ and Tiger Shroff’s _Baaghi 2_ in the state, mainly due to lack of new Tamil content. One of the important lessons to be learned from the first quarter of 2018 is that big star movies are no longer going to be profitable from Tamil Nadu theatrical rights alone. There has been huge drop in footfalls for all big films after the opening weekend, due to the increase in ticket prices. Today’s audiences prefer to watch movies on their tablets or mobiles via legal video streaming sites, where a film is premiered in under a month from its theatrical release. And after the ongoing strike comes to an end, there will be a shake-up in the way business is conducted in Kollywood. There should also be a long overdue correction in the way films are marketed, with smaller films unable to get a proper wide release, and distributors unwilling to pay ‘Minimum Guarantee’ amounts for big-banner/star movies. Quarter 2 will hopefully have the answers Kollywood seeks. And maybe that is when it will finally be “the best of times”.