Ours is an industry prone to snap judgments and stereotyping.
A trailer, a poster or just the bare details of its genre or cast and crew – we don’t need much evidence to authoritatively pass verdict on the fate of a film way before its release. “All-time blockbuster”, “Super hit”, “Red hot”, “Buzzing”, “Masala”, “Thanda”, “Dabba”, “Wash-out”, “Arty”… our conclusions are concise, confident and quick.
One such categorisation we often hear when discussing films is that they are ‘multiplex films’, or that they are ‘single-screen friendly’. This distinction presupposes that the audience that goes to a multiplex is different from the one that patronises single screen theatres.
How valid and relevant is that classification? To answer that question, we did some number-crunching to find out the relative contribution of multiplexes vis-à-vis singleplexes. Take a look at the table below, which compiles the relative contribution of both categories of cinemas for the top 25 grossers of 2013:
A trailer, a poster or just the bare details of its genre or cast and crew – we don’t need much evidence to authoritatively pass verdict on the fate of a film way before its release. “All-time blockbuster”, “Super hit”, “Red hot”, “Buzzing”, “Masala”, “Thanda”, “Dabba”, “Wash-out”, “Arty”… our conclusions are concise, confident and quick.
One such categorisation we often hear when discussing films is that they are ‘multiplex films’, or that they are ‘single-screen friendly’. This distinction presupposes that the audience that goes to a multiplex is different from the one that patronises single screen theatres.
How valid and relevant is that classification? To answer that question, we did some number-crunching to find out the relative contribution of multiplexes vis-à-vis singleplexes. Take a look at the table below, which compiles the relative contribution of both categories of cinemas for the top 25 grossers of 2013:
It’s a pretty simple table to read: The ratio for Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, for example, is 75:25 in favour of multiplexes, which means that for every one rupee it earned at single-screens, it earned Rs 3 at multiplexes.
It is also a very interesting table to read. The fact that multiplexes contribute more than single-screens is obvious across all the films. However, it is the varying degree of this contribution that holds interesting lessons. The three key takeaways:
• A ratio of around 65:35 or 2:1 seems to be the ideal ratio which gets you best of both worlds and last year’s biggest blockbusters, Dhoom:3, Chennai Express and Krrish, all display numbers in that range.
• A very high multiplex skew, with ratios of around 80:20 or more, is what we see in films like Madras Café, Special 26 and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, which were appreciated for their content. A good example of this trend is Kai Po Che with a very lop-sided ratio of 92.52:7.75. This is only topped by a film which was also high on content and doesn’t figure in the list above, The Lunchbox, whose ratio is 94.75:5.25.
• Films that have higher contributions from single-screens are usually ones that do not have very high overall box office numbers, which is not always a comment on their quality but indicative of the often wide price differential at which tickets are sold in the two categories of cinemas.
Long story, cut short: Often stereotypes and clichés exist because there is a general truth in them. Likewise, there does seem to be some merit in the trade’s assumption that content-heavy or in trade parlance, ‘hatke’, films stand a better chance at multiplexes while massy or ‘masala’ flicks have more takers among the single-screen audience.
