“Eureka!” I screamed as I hit upon this novel idea. A little effort by the right parties in question and the Telugu Film Industry can become the absolute specimen of a business model that can never fail. Telugu Cinema can see itself reach new monetary heights, break bigger records (a thing it seems to have a huge penchant for, so much so that every cinema-maker in his most moderate worth is claiming to have broken a record, even if that record was relevant only to the street he lived on!) and fans of Telugu Cinema can rejoice on seeing their favorite stars and “surprise”, their bank accounts ascend their stardom! Yes, dear audiences of TFI (that fond acronym we have given to the Telugu Film Industry), your beloved film industry can make you rich!
This is how it could go. And it’s actually quite simple. Every last purveyor of quality cinema has given up hopes on the TFI to be making good, adventurous and above all, new cinema;. Good, as that kills the demand for it. Also, the TFI itself has finally figured out the right schematics to churn out spectacularly run-of-the-mill and preposterously identical ‘formula’ films that have what it takes to be launched in thousands of theatres, be watched by lakhs of fans and garner crores in terms of money. So much so that all it takes for the TFI is to take the same mediocre plotpoints & screenplay (heck in some cases even most of the technicians remain the same) and change the leading faces of either gender on the film poster and Voila, you’ve a new blockbuster. Its almost like the bundles of Maruti Altos being spewed off the factories in Gurgaon everyday only to be swept off the showroom floors within hours, except only the Alto is a good car to reckon with. If these schematics make you think on the lines of a good stock to invest in that’ll never let you down at the nifty, my dear friend, you’re very very close to my idea.
There’s a nascent theme doing the rounds on the independent film circuit in Hollywood and elsewhere. Its called Crowd Sourcing and it involves letting people invest in percentages into a film that one is going to make. The entire budget for the film (which isn’t usually huge, since most of these projects are Indie efforts) is pooled in from investors who’re usually anybody from a hardcore film enthusiast to a layman interested in a profitable business venture. Based on however the film does on the commercial scene, the revenues are shared back with the investors. Now, take this concept and overlay it onto the present TFI scenario with all the formulaic sure-shot blockbusters juxtaposed with a little tinkering in the form of basic stock market economics. What if a certain portion of the financial liability (say 50%) that goes into making one of these Telugu films is split into stocks and sold off to potential investors through a public issue. Prospective investors (okay, fans of the stars in the flick, and every other crazy movie lover, the kind which isn’t exactly rare in TFI) would buy these stocks as it suits them and this money shall then go into producing the flick along with the usual production budgets. Advantage: Puffed up budgets leading to more grandiosity in the so called ‘formulae‘ that contribute to these flicks’ success. As these flicks are going to be inflating the box-offices anyways, the revenues are going to be multifold of the initial production budget. Now putting basic stock marketing sense into the picture, every stock holder gets back a percentage wise share of the film’s revenues pertaining to what he bought the stocks for. Presto! There you have a profit!
All we need is to set up an organization that handles stocks of films in production and the crowd sourcing and profit sharing activities. Given the sheer number of people involved in the film making business and the rate at which this number manifests itself by the day, this isn’t a very daunting task. Secondly, this idea works in more ways than one can imagine. For one, writer-directors can finally let go of the myth that they are actually working on Cinema and realize for good that they’re just working cogs of a business mechanism, given the entire profit making hoopla that shall fill the air. Also, our stars can finally renounce any pretense of working for cinema and happily call themselves businessmen. Cinema goers who have braved the consequences of Telugu cinema’s banality can finally justify the worth of the typical exorbitant multiplex ticket by buying stocks in the films that they’d planned to watch. At a more advanced stage in this concept, stocks can be classified into departmental stocks, say, acting, music, special effects etc. So based on the number of stocks and the rates at which they go out, audiences can themselves decide if they want four actresses against their favorite star in the next flick or exactly which law of physics they’re expecting their star to defy. Filmmakers can safely ditch their publicity budgets as the stockholders shall make sure they drag themselves and their entire family trees to watch the movies. Stockholders can form a rapid action team to contribute profusely to the hapless anti-piracy movement currently active. Fan clubs can have access to special stock prices, stock holders can have free passes to audio release functions and free tickets to first day ‘benefit’ shows. Heck, the stock holders can be exempted from paying entertainment tax. Bless me, see how novel and noble my idea gets as I unfold it!
Thence I propose! “Crowd-sourced stock-marketed Telugu Cinema” or in short "The Tollywood Mutual Fund" – a plan that’s gonna herald a new era for Telugu Cinema; and in doing so, shall actually benefit the worn out community that the TFI audience is, by making them rich!
