The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
| Bollywood rediscovered heroes in 2011 Posted: 26 Dec 2011 12:32 AM PST MUMBAI (Reuters) - Bollywood struck gold in 2011, revving up lacklustre box offices in India with help from its leading men who wooed audiences back to cinemas after a dismal 2010. Domestic revenues hit 19.25 billion rupees this year, up from 14.5 billion rupees in 2010, and an unprecedented four films crossed the billion rupee milestone. Two of those blockbusters starred actor Salman Khan. The solid performance contrasted sharply to the previous year when there were hardly any hits. "Audiences and filmmakers have gone back and discovered stories that are close to our Indian roots," said Sanjeev Lamba, Chief executive of Reliance Entertainment, which produced two of the year's biggest blockbusters -- "Bodyguard" and "Singham". "Bodyguard", in which Khan plays a personal security guard to a rich man's daughter and ends up falling in love with her, was the most successful Bollywood film, raking in more than 1.5 billion rupees at domestic box offices. "Singham" told the story of a right-minded police officer who stands up to a corrupt politician and was accompanied by romance, drama and high-octane action. Both "Bodyguard" and "Singham" were panned by critics but loved by audiences. And both featured strong central characters, harkening back to the 1980s and early '90s in Bollywood when films were centred on the hero and his defeat of a villain in a battle of good versus evil. "Audiences have always loved the dilemmas of the hero, a little bit of action, some drama and some romance," Lamba said. "We had a lot of that this year." Other themes were successful, too. Offbeat films like "The Dirty Picture", based on the life of a soft-core porn star, proved to be sleeper hits and took industry analysts by surprise. Together with the likes of "Singham" and "Bodyguard", these smaller films proved audiences have an appetite for both mass market and niche-oriented work. "It is not that more people are watching movies, but that the same audience is watching more movies," said Shailesh Kapoor of Ormax Media, a firm that specialises in film market research. "HARRY POTTER" HOT; "RA.ONE" NOT But widely-hyped movies like superhero film "Ra.One" were a let-down. In spite of a publicity blitzkrieg, actor Shah Rukh Khan's film did not live up to expectations with around 1.2 billion rupees in net box office. That was just a bit more than its official budget of a billion rupees. Industry estimates put the film's cost at over 1.5 billion rupees. Aside from that, for the most part, Bollywood managed to keep its purse strings in check, with production houses learning that budgeting a film right is half the battle. "Balaji Motion Pictures made 'The Dirty Picture' at a budget of less than 300 million rupees but have chosen themes and subjects which are interesting, and (they) publicised their films so well that audiences have felt compelled to watch them," said industry analyst Vajir Singh. Big studios like Reliance and UTV also have changed their business models, preferring to co-produce films rather than acquire them after completion. Last year, Reliance suffered losses after two big-ticket acquisitions, Mani Ratnam's "Raavan" and Hrithik Roshan-starrer "Kites" flopped at box offices. "This year, all our films have been co-productions or our own productions and we have seen the successes," Lamba said. "We prefer to be creatively involved from the beginning of the project rather than coming in at the end in an acquisition scenario." Indian audiences also warmed up to Hollywood blockbusters including "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" and "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" -- something that wasn't seen until just a few years ago due mainly to Bollywood's dominance of the box office. "These days, the box office collections of good Hollywood films can rival those of a Bollywood film," said Sunil Punjabi, chief executive of the Cinemax chain of multiplexes. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| "Mission: Impossible" cruises to top of box office Posted: 25 Dec 2011 09:44 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters): "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" cruised to No. 1 at box offices on Sunday, even as major new movies opened on Christmas Day which may change top 10 results when final numbers are tallied. The new Tom Cruise movie rang up an estimated $26.5 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales over the three-day weekend, according to studio estimates, after expanding from a limited release in Imax and other large-screen theaters last week. Paramount Pictures, which released the movie, said it expects a four-day tally of slightly more than $40 million by Monday, when final estimates are reported. The film's cumulative ticket sales are expected to reach just over $72 million after Monday. Indeed, the weekend box office race truly will finish on Monday because Christmas day annually is among the most crowded days in theaters and on Sunday, director Steven Spielberg's widely-anticipated "War Horse" makes its debut along with another newcomer, thriller "The Darkest Hour." Hollywood's major studios loaded the release schedule last week heading into the holiday, expecting the films to play well between now and New Year's Eve while parents and kids are away from work and school. As a result, a clear picture of how the movie studios fared this Christmas season awaits the full week of box office reports. Meanwhile, over the weekend Warner Bros' "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" took the No. 2 spot on U.S. and Canadian (domestic) box office charts with $17.8 million, according to Sunday's estimates. Cumulative ticket sales for "Sherlock" after two weeks now stand at roughly $76.5 million. Another holdover from last week, family comedy "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" squeaked into No. 3 with $13.3 million, pushing its total domestic ticket sales to $50.3 million after two weeks in theaters. Following it were a trio of last week's newcomers, widely-anticipated "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," family film "The Adventures of Tintin" and comedy "We Bought A Zoo." "Dragon Tattoo" landed at No. 4 on Sunday with $13 million, a hair behind the chipmunks, and a Sony spokesman cautioned the studio's figure could change when Sunday's figures are final. "Today and tomorrow should be our strongest days of the holiday frame," the spokesman said, noting that the studio did not have a Monday estimate. "Dragon Tattoo" now has estimated total domestic ticket sales of $21.4 million since its debut. "Tintin," another Spielberg film released by Paramount, landed at No. 5 over the weekend with $9.1 million. The studio sees it rising to $14.3 million after Monday. Total ticket sales by Monday are seen at $22.3 million since its debut. Finally, another new entry this weekend, the comedy "We Bought a Zoo," landed at No. 6 with $7.8 million. Paramount Pictures is a unit of Viacom Inc. Warner Bros. is part of Time Warner Inc. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" was released by the movie studio division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a unit of Sony Corp. Chipwrecked" and "Zoo" were both released by film divisions of 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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