Look East, Young Man
Two factoids from today’s trade news that gave this producer of Malaysian - Indian ethnic origins pause for pride and thought:
- Amir Muhammad, a Malaysian documentary maker, has been invited to screen his latest film “Apa Khabar Orang Kampung” in the International Forum. ( The title literally translates as “What News, Village People?”, but the English title is “Village People Radio Show” which, I have to say for me conjurs up a revival of a 70s Gay Icon band, which is perhaps rather the wrong idea, given that the film is about die-hard communists in the Malaysian rainforests. Or maybe that’s what he was going for.You can see the trailer here. And its quality makes me want to see it and makes me realise that I am worryingly ignorant about the current state of the Malaysian film industry and will have to start doing something about that. Probably starting with Amir.
- The Indian film industry had a bumper box office year. That’s good and interesting in itself, particularly when you realise that they dominated US releases, proving that cultural imperialism hasn’t yet extended to the Cinemas of India. But the more interesting fact is the nature of the year. Firstly a lot of the films that did well deviate from the usual cliches of Bollywood. Here is Screen International has to say about it:
There were also successes where Bollywood broke out of its own formula, with films about a superhero (Krrish), social reawakening of the youth (Rang De Basanti), revival of Mahatma Gandhi (Lage Raho Munnabhai), arranged marriages (Vivah) and extra-marital affairs (Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna) dominating the box office.
Now the economically extraordinarry thing, particularly if like us you are interested in the potential for profit from low budget movies, is to look at the relationship between budget and box office for these films (again from Screen):
Box office top earners, 2006
1. Dhoom 2
Cost: $0.6m Revenue: $37m2. Krrish
Cost: $0.5m Revenue: $31m
3. Lage Raho Munnabhai
Cost: $0.3m Revenue: $29.3m
4. Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna
Cost: $1.1m Revenue: $29.3m
5. Rang De Basanti
Cost: $0.7m Revenue: $27mNow that’s startling. Returns at those multiples would have investors laughing all the way to the bank. It won’t escape regular readers attention (it certainly didn’t escape mine) that the budgets above are close to what we are spending on our first few films.
So it turns out, that (in India at least) it is possible to make thoughtful, intelligent micro-budgeted movies that become box-office mega-hits and post super-normal returns.
Our turn. Here in the UK.
January 17th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Pop by to the Berlinale, it’ll be fun!
At least 10 Malaysians will be there in various capacities.
January 18th, 2007 at 10:05 am
would love to, but alas not at Berlin this year… enjoy yourself and big up to the Malaysians there..
January 24th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
My information may be out of date, and its relevance could be dubious, but I thought you’d be interested to know that—at least 7 years ago, and I think I read recently that this was still the case—the Indian Government taxes the Indian film industry upwards of 90% on all profits, partly REQUIRING them to have huge multiples to make any decent money. I wonder what would happen if the same taxes were levied against Hollywood?
January 30th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Kabhi Alvidha Na Kehena and all the other movies stated cost ten times more than what’s actually written there. If it could cost $1.1 million to film a movie in New York and pay the five most expensive cast in Bollywood then everyone would jump at the opportunity. Truth is that $1.1million is probably what they paid Shah Rukh. So this Articles really horse shit! I’m not even buying the revenue figures as a result.