Regional cinema is the real star, says Mumbai Movie Studios’ Naveen Chandra

Mumbai Movie Studios is into the production, marketing, and distribution of Indian regional-language movies. Its CEO, Naveen Chandra, sums up the rationale behind focusing on regional this way: “Regional is no longer regional. In fact, last year’s Oscar best film award was a Korean film. Last year’s Oscar nomination from India was ‘Jellikkettu’, a Malayalam film. Many regional films are going to the Oscars. I think regional is the space where we would like to operate in. There is a distinct need that the market has. We are in a position to fulfil that need.”

In this freewheeling chat with Adgully, Chandra talks about the origin of the company, his theatre-first strategy, changing dynamics of film marketing, etc. Stressing the growing importance of regional films, he says that the government should build more screens for the promotion of the same. Excerpts from the interview:

How has the journey been so far?

It has been a very fascinating journey. We may be one of the few businesses that actually started during the pandemic. We have been working on it since 2018, but it was really in late 2020 we took off. The idea was to create a regional studio, which essentially finances and distributes regional-language products. The idea was to come up with a storytellers’ fund, a SEBI-registered category II alternative investment fund (AIF). We got a SEBI license in November 2019 for the storytellers’ fund, and eventually, the pandemic hit us and we pivoted that into this company, Mumbai Movie Studios, in October 2020.

During the pandemic, we listened to 300 stories from different writers and directors in different languages. We focused on languages other than Hindi. So, we had a lot of regional-language stories that came to us from Chennai, Kolkata, Punjab and Kochi.

We shortlisted 25 out of those 300 stories and we are hoping to complete the production cycle of these 25 stories over the next two-three years. Four of them are done and five more are in the pipeline.

There have been many ups and downs. The pandemic, as you know, has shown that the virus is always ahead of us. The virus decides our pace: when we will finish or release a film. We are the fag end of the virus hopefully. So, we should be able to begin on a stronger footing than where we are today. Virus dictates everything: from production to marketing to distribution. I had a movie that was ready since January 2021. It’s been about a year-and-a-half. But despite this pandemic, it has been a fascinating journey.

So, you see a lot of growth in the regional movie space?

Regional films face two big issues in general. The first is that they don’t have organised capital, unlike Hindi where a lot of capital is available. Most of the time, they struggle to complete the film or mount the film. They struggle to even distribute. We thought we could become that conduit, which helps regional-language film producers organise capital. The second part of the opportunity was essentially distribution. Many regional films are canned as they don't have money for distribution and the right number of screens. So, we thought of creating a sort of original film fund that selects regional stories that can be produced and distributed.

Moreover, I believe there is a big opportunity that can be addressed over the next few years. Regional is no longer regional. In fact, a Korean film bagged last year's Oscar best film award. It was not the best film for a foreign language; it was the best film overall. Last year’s Oscar nomination from India was ‘Jettikkettu’, a Malayalam film. A lot of regional films are going to the Oscars. I think regional is the space where we would like to operate in. There is a distinct need that the market has. We are in a position to fulfil that need.

You do regional films with a theatre-first strategy. Did you have to change that strategy due to the pandemic?

Well, yes and no. We do not have distribution windows. We thought we would do our first Marathi film with 100% capacity, but we couldn't. We waited for a year and two months. And we had to release films with 50% capacity. We had to release some films with some theatres still not open. I don’t think we have been able to sort of circumvent the theatre-first strategy. We have been able to do that till date.

The second part is of course the opportunity that OTT has created for us sitting at home to watch content. TV was always there but it became a new conduit to receive content in other languages. For us, theatre-first means that we release it, and then we release on OTT and then satellite, followed by other streams of revenue. So, it is not that we have changed that. We still continue to have a theatre-first strategy.

We have a very strong distribution partner in UFO Moviez, which has great strength in distribution across the length and breadth of the country. This partnership enables us to punch far above our weight, in the sense of getting a good distribution for our regional films in various markets. For example, their distribution arm helps us distribute a Malayalam film outside of Kerala or a Telugu film outside of Andhra, very effectively. In summary, we will continue to do a theatre-first strategy; we don't see any change in that strategy. We only hope to look forward to better returns with the theatres open with a hundred percent capacity.

The conventional notions of the box office have changed with the digital release of movies. Is it a passing phase or do you think this is the future?

We make a significant number of films. India, before the pandemic, used to make about 1,800 films in a year. That’s a very large number. We only have ten-thousand screens to show them in. Earlier, everybody would attempt to take the movie to the theatrical route. Right now, with the advent of OTT and satellite, there is an opportunity for many producers to look at the option of going directly to OTT or TV. So, you circumvent the fact that there is a screen shortage in the country in the urban markets. There is a shortage of content in the rural markets. By using an OTT platform, it is possible now to reach the content out to the rural markets. And to very niche urban content can be reached via OTT. Filmmakers have more choices; stories that are more diverse can be told, and audiences that are more diverse can be reached. I think it has only gotten better.

What is your view on the hybrid release of movies? Some producers are against releasing movies on OTT within a month of theatre release? How can OTT and theatres co-exist?

There will be some movies that will be made at such high budgets that they have to go the theatrical route to be able to recover the money and reach the widest possible audience. I think what essentially the theoretical does is two things. One: it gives you access to a very large-size audience. Two: it also helps you discover the price of the content for the OTT platforms and the TV satellite platforms. Those are two things that a theatrical release does. Then you do a mixed model where you also release the movie in the OTT and TV on the same day as perhaps the theatre. Sometimes, if it is a real mass movie you may hurt your chances of a box office success. If it is a niche movie, you may be better off doing this model. So, maybe this model works largely for very niche movies, where we do a limited theatrical release and release it on the OTT and TV platform. So, you have audiences coming from both the platforms for your film.

So, there will be small movies that will be released only on OTT?

In today’s day and age, OTT platforms are also pursuing a unique strategy of getting new customers first. To grow their business, they need content. So, they may be acquiring all kinds of content, essentially to get a diversity of audiences to the platform. Eventually, I think they will get there; they will get the numbers they seek. Then they will start deciding what kind of content they should really have on the platform. Today they are buying everything, just so that all kinds of people come to the platform. I think that is the main strategy right now.

Recently, we did a series on piracy. Theatrical piracy still exists. Is the industry organised enough to fight piracy?

There is intent in the industry to stop piracy; there is no doubt about it. I think the entire industry does not want any piracy to happen and any copyright violation to take place. The other variable at play is the fact that 80% of the film producers are single film producers, basically people who make only one film in their lifetime. And every year there'll be a brand new thousand people. These thousand people can’t be brought together. So, if anything has to be done, it has to be done centrally, at the level of a film federation of India, where perhaps you voluntarily take some contribution from every film producer to run a unique cell that fights piracy. There are independent anti-piracy efforts that people are taking. But most of them are reactionary in nature; once you see the content somewhere, then you try to trace it back and then you stop, but it’s not preventive in nature. To get preventive care you need funds. You need to actually get people to contribute some money, create a body and a vehicle that can go and attack piracy. Until then, there will be sporadic efforts by a few producers who think it is important to do anti-piracy measures.

OTT platforms have access to audience data, which gives them an edge when it comes to understanding audience behaviour and trends. Do you rely on market research or data to test the viability of your projects?

While it is true that OTT platforms do have a lot of data and algorithms to process the data, I would say the platforms are still in the early stages of their development. I think their numbers are still very small. They don't even cover 3% of the population individually. And the early adopters are the ones who are able to capture. So the data, if it all, will show only the choices of early adopters, and not really the entire population as a whole. As more and more people adopt OTT, the data will get better. And they may be able to then programme, create, and acquire better content. Data is always useful. But, finally, in the film business, it has always been a gut instinct to understand what an audience likes and that's how films have been made all along. Maybe there is a mix of gut and data that will decide at some point what kind of stories will work and what won’t.

Have the dynamics of film marketing changed? What are the latest trends in the segment?

Post the pandemic, it has changed a lot. There are a lot more people in digital now. There are a number of actors who are more active on digital now than they were earlier. Social media has now started playing a key role in film performance. Today, it is very likely that the film's performance will also be dependent on the people who come out of the theatre after the first show. What WhatsApp messages do they send to their friends about the movie is also now a deciding factor, more than marketing perhaps. Suppose five people send such messages. Assuming each one of them has 250 friends, that’s about a thousand people who could decide the fate of the films. There are multiple factors at play now compared to earlier.

What are the key challenges that the industry faces now?

One of the biggest initiatives that the government can take is probably building more screens or enabling a policy that helps build more cinema theaters in the country. We cannot have a situation where there is one Hollywood and Bollywood movie releasing and there are no theaters available for regional films. We cannot have such a situation where with the resurgence of great regional films, you don’t have a space for such language movies. Marathi or Bengali language films struggle to get screens. To achieve scale for regional languages, it is critical that they have theaters available to showcase the films. That is only possible if there are more screens, which is possible if there is some sort of incentive or a plan the government can work out from a regulatory point of view that enables investment into the growth of theatres. I think we can easily absorb 10,000 more theaters in the country over the next five-six years, which will ultimately help great regional storytellers.

Is the notion of ‘Bollywood is equal to Indian movie’ outside the country slowly changing?

Fundamentally, even from a census point of view, look at the number of people who speak different languages. Fifty-five per cent of the country speaks different languages other than Hindi as its mother tongue. A large majority of people do not have Hindi as their mother tongue. If you are able to provide them with that content in a regional language, there is nothing like it. That being said, Hindi is a primary language. A lot more content will continue to be created in Hindi. But, I think performance-wise regional has already shown that they can get a better return on investment if done well and distributed well.

How do you work to make a project a reality?

We have a three to four-step process. I don’t think it is different for anybody. Primarily, we select a very good story and spend a lot of time deciding what a good story is. There are parameters that we need to make sure the story fulfills before we even look at its production. It is very critical to have a great team that works on that story to make the story happen. After that, we work on the budget. We make sure that the films are made on the right budget. We don’t produce ourselves; we always look at a co-producer who can do the line production on the ground. We provide 50% of the cost of production. We fund, finance, and oversee the project and look at the marketing and distribution. For every film, we would like to completely monetise it.

What are the upcoming projects?

We have projects in about five more languages. We have a project in Bengali, Punjabi, two projects in Malayalam, one in Tamil and Telugu.

Are there any languages that you have not forayed into yet?

We have this criterion: if a language is not spoken by more than 3 crore people, we don’t operate in that language. So, we need a minimum of 3 crore people speaking that language to be operating in that language. For example, we would not do a film in Dogri language.

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