Rajinikanth's Kabali was released in different parts of the world thanks to this online service

At 65, Rajinikanth is the undisputed king of the Tamil box office and the makers of his films spare no efforts to cash in on his popularity. His opening records remain unparalleled, compelling producers and theatre owners to release his films in the maximum number of screens available to meet the ticket demand. As humongous a challenge as it may seem for any producer, the process has now been made comparatively easier with Qube Wire. It is a platform that enables its user to control, distribute and release the film in a location and screen of their choice, all of which was done manually before. [caption id=“attachment_2910576” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kabali has earned Rs 40 crore at its box office opening[/caption] Senthil Kumar, the Co-Founder of Qube cinemas explains how Qube Wire works. “If producer sells the rights of the film to an international distributor, they would give us a letter saying the rights have been given to the distributor,” said Kumar. “Now this person will want us to know that the US distribution is being handled by a certain distributor. The distributor in the US will say the California guy will then ask for a key for a particular theatre. We needed to confirm each of this and release the keys accordingly. It’s now possible to use Qube Wire to track and control these rights,” Senthil explains. As Jayandera Panchapakesan, the founder of Qube Cinemas points out, Qube Wire makes the job easier for the producer and the distributor. “As a filmmaker, I don’t have to worry about the logistics of distribution, I just make the films and upload it into the Qube Wire cloud, then I appoint someone based on my business arrangement with them and assign the key to him,” he says. Before Qube Wire every time a distributor, a sub-distributor or exhibitor needed the rights they had to manually assign the key to the user after emailing requests to Qube. “When there are thousands of emails like this going on like this, and considering how last minute our Indian movies are, it becomes a huge nightmare for us,” says Senthil. “Now we can digitally put the information on who owns the key in the key itself. So it becomes easier for the producers and distributors to create the key and control its usage. Everything is digitally confirmed by the time it reaches the theatre and the distributor doesn’t have to wait until 3 in the morning to see who he needs to give the key to,” Kumar spells out. Considering its scale of release, _Kabali’_s, benefitted much from the new platform. “The movie had a crazy amount of hype around it and it was not just released in India, but was also released in Japan, US, Australia and every part of the world. This technology and platform came in handy for the producers and distributors. The wider the release of a movie, the more advantaged the makers will be. Not just for independent movies or small movies, even Hollywood films eventually,” says Panchapakesan. Qube Wire made Kabali available in over 2400 different locations globally. “We were able to make over 18,000 keys available in less than 24 hours, which I think was a huge achievement. We were able to take Kabali to around 3500 screens worldwide,” Senthil Kumar pointed out. “We hurried to finish the product by Kabali and wanted to test it on a film of this scale. It was a trial by fire for us as well, but so far it’s worked really well,” he adds. Kabali’s producer Kalaippuli S Thanu says Qube Wire was a blessing to distribute a movie of Rajini’s magnitude. “Kabali was a movie that needed the maximum number of prints. Qube Wire has been immensely helpful in releasing the film in this scale,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_2922360” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  (Left) Senthi Kumar, poster of Kabali, (right) Jayandera Panchapakesan[/caption] Senthil Kumar affirms that though a few other companies had devised similar platforms, a few features were exclusive to his product. “We have made available a very comprehensive list of over, one lakhs screens worldwide, thus helping the user easily choose the intended screen,” he said. “One or two companies doing small part of what we do, but the method of dividing the world by territories and assigning digital rights to territories, that we have applied for patents in many countries in the world including the US,  Japan and India. So nobody can replicate this feature,” he states. According to the founders Qube Wire will benefit Korean, Japanese and Iranian film industries largely helping them find wider markets. Indian movies too can now be distributed without hassles in fresher markets. “The plan is to launch Indian movies making use if the system and we fine tune it making it easier to use. It’s already available to over 400 companies around the world, who are using it on a trail basis,” Kumar revealed. “When people understand the convenience and power of the technology, it will be widely used,” Panchapakesan hopes. Qube is now aiming at expanding Qube Wire to deliver the whole movie to the end user over data line. “We are looking at launching this feature in three months and are hoping to make it available worldwide by March,” adds Kumar.