This has been an amazing week with the demonetization of our highest value currency notes, Rs500 and Rs1000 and its immediate effect on the spending power of citizens. When spending power takes a beating whether through natural or man-made crises, it is inevitable that expense on entertainment takes an immediate beating and not surprisingly a couple of smaller films have already announced a postponement in their release dates. The biggest film this week, Rock On 2 is gamefully going ahead but one expects its collections will definitely be affected by the lack of spending money in the market. Not everyone is comfortable buying tickets online and/or using credit/debit cards to purchase tickets and it is this audience that is expected to adopt a wait and watch attitude before spending on watching a film. It wouldn’t be remiss to say that queues at cinema houses will be inversely proportional to the queue at bank counters to exchange demonetized notes. One just hopes that the musical does not pay the price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Image Source: twitter/ShraddhaKapoor
Meanwhile, I find myself very amused by the rush of messages and felicitations that out film industry denizens shower on one another through the medium of twitter. It happens like clockwork every time a star, actor or director has a promo, song or film releasing. There is a flood of congratulatory messages on twitter, best wishes for the release or generous words of praise for the product. In the incestuous world of movies everyone has a reason for staying on the right side of everyone else and what better way than to declare your appreciation to millions of fans whether you have actually seen the promo or film being talked about or not. How much of this converts into footfalls in theatres is anybody’s guess but it must be done to prove loyalty. In the normal world this is nothing more than ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’.
Another phrase generally lost in translation in the film industry is ‘all publicity is good’. It isn’t. As we have seen so many times it can cost crores of rupees in lost revenues or careers too. Often it just results in viewer exhaustion particularly when the publicity is mismatched from the film’s core. One has lost count of the number of times stories are planted about the lead actors of a film in the run up to its release that say little about anything to do with the film. You would think that with time this would change but as P and A gets to be more and more important one is just seeing more of the miss variety of publicity than relevant.
Once again a vacuum looms over release dates with nothing exciting coming through for a few weeks. Hopefully Befikre with current BO sensation Ranveer Singh will buck the trend and then Aamir Khan’s sole release this year, Dangal. Till then one can just wait and watch.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of SpotboyE.com.
Thumbnail Image Source: twitter/ShraddhaKapoor
Image Source: twitter/ShraddhaKapoor
Meanwhile, I find myself very amused by the rush of messages and felicitations that out film industry denizens shower on one another through the medium of twitter. It happens like clockwork every time a star, actor or director has a promo, song or film releasing. There is a flood of congratulatory messages on twitter, best wishes for the release or generous words of praise for the product. In the incestuous world of movies everyone has a reason for staying on the right side of everyone else and what better way than to declare your appreciation to millions of fans whether you have actually seen the promo or film being talked about or not. How much of this converts into footfalls in theatres is anybody’s guess but it must be done to prove loyalty. In the normal world this is nothing more than ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’.
Another phrase generally lost in translation in the film industry is ‘all publicity is good’. It isn’t. As we have seen so many times it can cost crores of rupees in lost revenues or careers too. Often it just results in viewer exhaustion particularly when the publicity is mismatched from the film’s core. One has lost count of the number of times stories are planted about the lead actors of a film in the run up to its release that say little about anything to do with the film. You would think that with time this would change but as P and A gets to be more and more important one is just seeing more of the miss variety of publicity than relevant.
Once again a vacuum looms over release dates with nothing exciting coming through for a few weeks. Hopefully Befikre with current BO sensation Ranveer Singh will buck the trend and then Aamir Khan’s sole release this year, Dangal. Till then one can just wait and watch.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of SpotboyE.com.
Thumbnail Image Source: twitter/ShraddhaKapoor