MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment has revived its Hindi movie acquisitions for the home video market and is targeting a revenue of Rs 1.40 billion this fiscal.A berserk rise in costs had kept the oldest active home video player out of the ring last year as Moser Baer and Reliance ADAG‘s Big Music & Home Entertainment accumulated movies at an aggressive pace.
“The acquisition price has dropped by 30-40 per cent this year. Besides, the DVD prices have stabilised at a feasible level,” says Shemaroo Entertainment director Hiren Gada.
Shemaroo has acquired rights for eight movies this year including Slumdog Millionaire, winner of eight Oscar awards, and Chandni Chowk to China.
On the production front, the company has lined up one live action and two animation movies.
Driven by high costs, Shemaroo had scaled down its turnover in FY‘09 which skid to Rs 1.10 billion from Rs 1.42 billion in FY‘08.
“We wanted to scale up our production business last year, but the prices were too high. The Bollywood industry is still carrying high-cost inventory in its pipeline. We have a few projects this year, but will have to wait a bit more longer to have a wider slate,” says Gada.
Shemaroo is also building up a World Cinema catalogue and has acquired 100 movies. It has tied up with UTV for distributing its World Cinema titles on home video. “We have released 30 of our own collections. The task is to release the balance movies along with the UTV titles before we do more fresh acquisitions,” says Gada.
The World Cinema business is still at a nascent stage in India but could turn profitable down the road. “It is a premium niche category. The price point is good and it raises our home video presence,” says Gada.
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