Category: Movies

MUMBAI: Shah Rukh Khan-Kajol starrer My Name is Khan has become the first movie to use the roadblock strategy.

The Dharma Productions’ film will have an exclusive three-minute trailer run across the Star India channels at 10 pm today.

Says a Star India spokesperson, “11 Star India channels including Star Plus, Star One, Star Gold, Channel [V] and Star Pravah, will air the exclusive trailer of the movie 10 pm on 16 December.”

Fox Star Studios, a JV between Twentieth Century Fox and Star, has taken the global distribution rights for My Name is Khan, which is slated for release in February 2010.

Earlier on 17 September and 29 October, FMCG major Hindustan Unilever (HUL) had blocked Star India netork channels consuming the entire advertising airtime.
 

MUMBAI: Yash Raj Film‘s latest offering Rocket Singh – Salesman of The Year opened below expectations. In its opening weekend, the Ranbir Kapoor-starrer did a net business of around Rs 102 million in India.

Going by the manner in which Ranbir‘s earlier two films Wake Up Sid and Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani fared at the opening, everyone was expecting the latest Yash Raj product to have a flying start, moreso, because the film was a product of Shimit Amin and Jaideep Sahni, the architects of the super hit YRF Film Chak De!India.

Said trade analyst NP Yadav, “Rocket Singh had an dull opening on Friday, was a little better on Saturday but on Sunday, it did show better collections. On the whole, the overall weekend remained well below the mark.”

According to industry sources, the film began with a 20 to 40 per cent start at certain plexes while single-screens reported a start between 10 to 15 per cent. The opening day saw a occupancy of around 30 to 40 per cent at multiplexes. On the overall, the film‘s opening business was much below expectations.

Avers Fun Cinema COO Vishal Kapur, “This film will not be liked by all and sundry, but what we have gathered from the people who have seen it, Rocket Singh – Salesman of The Year is a good film. Though the film‘s opening was average with around 30 per cent occupancy, the word-of-mouth publicity going around may see the film pick up in the coming days.”

Meanwhile, the coming Friday will see James Cameron‘s 3D film, Avatar hit the screens, which has created a hype because of its special effects.

“Every film will perform on their own merits, but the Avatar rage will definitely have an impact on their box-office performance,” says Kapur. “The 3D spectacle is bound to create anxiety among viewers who have read a lot about the making of the film. I think the box-office turnout during the weekend would be fantastic with most of the shows booked well in advance.”

Meanwhile, Paa grossed Rs 50 million in its second weekend, taking its 10-day total to around 210 million.

Insiders in the industry hope that the film would be able to generate a business of around Rs 70 million this week.

MUMBAI: Sony Pictures‘ 2012 has crossed the Rs 900 million mark in India to become the highest-grossing Hollywood film ever to make it so big in the country.

In India, the film has had its widest release ever for a Hollywood film with a total of 766 prints in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. 2012 continues to run successfully in all centres in its sixth week.

The film surpassed the previous record-holder Spider-Man 3 that grossed
Rs 680 million, back in 2007.

In its opening weekend, thanks to 90 per cent plus occupancy figures in all centres, gross box-office figures were second only to Spider-Man 3, despite the film not being part of a known franchise. By the end of the first week, the film registered the highest Hollywood opening ever, putting it well on its way to creating new records at the Indian box office. 

Said Sony Pictures India managing director Kercy Daruwala, “Our approach to marketing and distributing this film was to engage all sections of the audience, multiplex as well as single screen, metros as well as small towns, much like any large scale Indian film.

“We believe this approach paid off by bringing in audiences who may not generally watch Hollywood films. 2012 has indisputably changed the face of the movie business in India and made Hollywood films a force to reckon with, setting a benchmark in the industry. It will undoubtedly be among the top films of the year in India, in any language.”

Sony Pictures India released 2012 across the world on 13 November. Directed by Roland Emmerich who has directed films like Godzilla, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 10000 BC, the film reveals the director‘s vision of the apocalypse that is expected to occur in 2012.

MUMBAI: Rentrak Corp is snapping up Nielsen Co’s EDI division for $15 million, a move that will make it a powerhouse to provide box-office information to studios and other subscribers.

The sale, expected to close in the first quarter of 2010, will help Portland-based Rentrak expand its footprint across 15 countries for capturing theatrical box-office results.

Having presence in markets like India and Russia, Rentrak will gain from Nielsen’s strong footprint in major markets such as Britain, France, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Australia.

Rentrak’s Box Office Essentials business, an online database that provides real-time ticket sales information, will be integrated with Nielsen EDI.

Nielsen will get to shed its non core assets while retaining its focus on the core business. Last week, Nielsen agreed to sell seven trade publications, including the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, to a consortium of investors led by print media mogul James Finkelstein.
 

MUMBAI: The Motion Picture Distributors Association (India) (MPDA) has released two internet piracy studies that go to say that copyright infringement online is a major problem in India.

The first report by Internet company DtecNet – based on tracking of downloading IP-addresses on P2P networks – showed that from April to September 2009, India was among the top 10 countries in the world with the largest number of illegal P2P activities.

Similar results were found by internet company Envisional. In its internet piracy landscape report, Envisional found that online piracy of film and television content in India was mainly carried out through the file-sharing network BitTorrent and cyber lockers or web-based file hosts such as RapidShare or HotFile. Video streaming sites are also popular, though their usage is lower than Bittorrent and cyber lockers.

The major international BitTorrent portals were heavily used by Indian downloaders. In addition, the number and popularity of a range of large Indian-focused BitTorrent trackers was extremely high.

Within a range of BitTorrent swarms for six MPA member studio films, 6.5 per cent of IP addresses located could be traced back to an Indian IP address. This placed the country as the fourth largest downloader after the US, Great Britain and Canada.

Hindi films are the most widely available domestic Indian content with most down loaders in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. The recent film Kaminey is estimated to have been downloaded just over 350,000 times on BitTorrent with around two thirds of those downloaders located in India.

“The numbers the surveys have come up with just underpin our constant refrain – that the economic and social impact of online piracy is enormous and will have even greater long-term implications if not addressed,” said MPA president and managing director, Asia-Pacific, Michael Ellis.

“We are only too aware that more needs to be done to help people understand that when they take unauthorised content off the internet, or pay next to nothing from a pirate street vendor, they are indulging in online theft and therefore damage the very movie-making community that has been bringing them decades of entertainment,” Ellis added.

Moreover, India is one of the largest users of cyber lockers in the world. On an average, 8.2 per cent of visitors to the top ten cyber lockers worldwide are located in India and the country makes up 11.8 per cent of visitors to the top ten cyber locker link sites which collate and index pirated content held on cyber lockers.

As broadband penetration is now accelerating in India, measures for stemming internet piracy should be considered or the numbers of subscribers involved in P2P file sharing in India are likely to grow exponentially in tandem with the country’s broadband growth, and are expected to pose even more significant risks to its domestic film industry as well.

Added MPDA (India) managing director Rajiv Dalal, “Around the world, film industries face the same problems. We need strong laws to support copyright, strong enforcement of those laws, stiff sentences for people who violate those laws, and most important, an understanding by ordinary citizens, the people who love movies, that buying pirated movies hurts the industry and makes it difficult for movie makers to make new films.”
 

MUMBAI: The trial selling license of DVD kiosk operator Redbox has been extended by Paramount Home Entertainment (PHE) till 30 June 2010. This move will usher new-release titles such as Up in the Air and The Lovely Bones.

Redbox and PHE signed their initial trial license agreement in August this year. Under the deal, Redbox customers will be provided with access to new-release DVD titles from PHE on the day of release until 30 June 2010. Redbox has agreed to destroy PHE titles once the product is removed from kiosks. If Paramount exercises the option past a trial, the agreement with Redbox will run through December 2014 and contains an early termination right at PHE‘s discretion in December 2011.

“We are enjoying our business relationship with Redbox and the data from our initial trial period has been encouraging,” said Paramount Home Entertainment worldwide president Dennis Maguire. “We are extending the time period that we have to exercise our option in order to give us more time to assess the long-term potential of this business relationship.”

“The extension marks another positive step forward in our relationship with Paramount Home Entertainment,” added Redbox president Mitch Lowe. “This agreement provides our customers with access to Paramount titles the day of release at the more than 19,000 redbox locations nationwide and underscores our commitment to working with the industry.”