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Bombay Bandh!

Sharmila Taliculam

Suddenly, Hollywood is not on Hindi-speaking terms. Not in Bombay at least.

A still from Titanic

To bring back to normal raised eyebrows, the explanations range from the mundane -- "bad business" -- to the conspiratorial -- "dirty politics and dirtier money".

Whatever the truth, the fact is that Hollywood films dubbed in Hindi have suddenly disappeared from the theatres of Bombay.

Industry grapevine says a certain political party is responsible for this state of affairs. The foreign film distributors, you are told, were not interested in "donating" to their cause, and hence the consequence.

Subscribers of this theory point out that the overt reason put out, obviously, goes back to the politically correct ideology of Swadeshi, ie, protecting the indigenous industry - Bollywood -- and all that.

Claims Indu Mirani, associate editor of the trade magazine Box Office, "The opposition to dubbed films is because the [Indian] producers and the distributors think their films don't run as a result."

In total agreement is Sen of the Film Federation of India: "There are a few distributors and theatre owners who have objected to this, and they are planning something. But we have not received anything on paper so far."

N N Sippy, president of the Indian Motion Pictures Distributors' Association, does not agree with this contention which, he feels, shows the distributors in poor light.

He wants it on record that "there is no objection from my side. It's the theatre owners and exhibitors who have some grudge against these [dubbed foreign] films and have stopped them from being screened in Bombay. I have nothing to do with the decision."

Now, if you believe in the Holmes Method, it is about sharpening focus by elimination. And eliminating distributors leaves us with theatre-owners and their motives that are supposed to be dictated by the dictates of a certain party.

But first, a digression into the character of our characters. Who really are the distributors and theatre owners and what does each stand to gain or lose?

Normally, producers sell films outright to distributors, who then take the gamble at the box office.

In a typical situation, the distributor for a particular geographical 'territory' rents cinema houses for a few weeks. If the film does well, he makes money from the ticket proceeds, if not he stands to lose.

Incidentally, the theatre owner is secure in the bargain. He has had his rent and the success of the film has no bearing, whatsoever, on his income.

However, theatre owners can up their chances to bag big bucks if they are prepared to gamble along with the distributor.

It works this way: if the theatre-owner thinks a particular film will do exceptionally well, he may offer his cinema house to the distributor for a significantly lower rent or no rent at all.

This is done as a part of a deal where the theatre-owner gets to share the ticket proceeds. If the film that is showing turns out to be a blockbuster, the theatre-owner could make several times more than what mere rent would have brought him.

This lesson in industry mechanics prepares us to grasp the more intricate goings on here.

A still from Jurassic Park

A very respected industry analyst does not believe in chewing words. "As far as I know it is a fight between Hollywood companies and the Theatre Owners' Association. The TOA has paid money [to a political party] for elections. The Hollywood companies haven't."

Dubbed FX films from Hollywood like Jurassic Park and Titanic have made a killing. For the theatre-owners, most of these deals have been the only-rent ones. Their runaway success was unexpected and the foreign film companies shovelled in all the money.

The Analyst Anonymous is alluding to this when he refers to the 'grudge' accusations against the theatre owners that are being made by Mirani, Sen and Sippy.

But it is not as if Rediff is about to pronounce theatre-owners guilty. Ours is only to pass the Dictaphone around.

For the record, here is U A Thadani, president of the Theatre Owners' Association: "Our main reason for not showing any dubbed Hollywood films is that they are not profitable for us."

Okay, so he is not denying the theatre-owners' bias against dubbed foreign films. But then, in showbiz, a good villain has his reasons.

Thadani explains that "there is no market for them [dubbed films] and the theatres are empty most of the time. The only films that run are the ones that have special effects and the last one was Godzilla. The rest flopped badly. And then Godzilla was screening at a time when the theatres charged [a rent of] Rs 75,000 [per week] whereas today the charges have increased to Rs 2,50,000. We cannot recover the cost at all. Not to mention distributors who crib that they are losing money too. There is no political interference here because we don't operate that way."

If Thadani is to be believed, the question that begs an answer is whether really large dubbing successes like Jurassic Park and Titanic screened in theatres where the owners had a stake in the ticket proceeds.

The answer is a resounding no. These successes were totally unexpected, and the foreign film distributors carried home the loot alone.

Later, when theatre-owners did get adventurous with dubbed releases of Brave Heart and Rush Hour, the scene was not as hot as before. So there!

But this story is not over yet.

Our premise of eliminating the distributors of local films was just that, a premise.

If you chose to believe Thadani instead, the suspicion could only fall on Indian Hindi film distributors and producers.

Mirani believes that if the local producers and distributors have really called for this unofficial ban on dubbed films, it is not going to work.

"Considering the [quality of local] films made these days, I don't think it [the unofficial ban on dubbed foreign films] is going to make a difference. Even after the ban, there have been no hit films really. This ban is not going to help if you make a bad film. But a film like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai will run despite the dubbed films. It's the FMC and the IMPDA that are opposing these films," she argues.

Is Mirani not mixing her market segments here? Are the people who watch Kuch Kuch Hota Hai not more universal than those that watch Jurassic Park in Hindi? Instead, are the larger numbers of 'B' grade Hindi films not being threatened by the dubbed films from Hollywood?

Mirani quickly agrees to all this. "They [the 'B' grade films] are the ones in danger of being wiped out completely by these [dubbed] films. It's is the smaller centres that see these films. In Bombay most people speak English and they will watch the English version of the film."

Is Mirani implying that a ban on dubbed foreign films, particularly in Bombay, of little significance? If yes, she has a worthy challenger.

Komal Nahata, editor of another respected trade journal, Film Information, begs to differ. He points out that it is not true that most people in Bombay watch English films. He declares, "Even in Bombay, 95 per cent of the audience watches the dubbed films. Only five per cent watch the original."

Nahata, however, agrees with Mirani that the real threat is to the 'B' grade Hindi films because the dubbed Hollywood films have been showing profits of Rs 100-150 million. This is about the same that is earned by successful 'B' grader made locally.

But the solidest of arguments can fall apart when confronted with contradictory real-life examples.

A still from Braveheart

Mirani points out that "despite there being an average of 15 to 20 releases every year, only three have done very well. Only dubbed versions of Jurassic Park, Anaconda and the Lost World earned in the region of Rs 80-100 million all over India. Godzilla didn't earn much but it did better than others."

If you have ruled out political threat and envy of local industry, now you can very well strike out the bad business theory too. Mirani's figures are anything but in red.

That leaves out only the foreign film distributors themselves.

But, a phone call to Jacinto Fernandes of Paramount Pictures takes one no closer to enlightenment:

"We have not faced any problems because we have had no releases yet. We did hear from the market about this ban. We are dubbing Prince of Egypt in Hindi and Malayalam and we are going ahead with it. We don't foresee any problems at all. There was no such announcement on paper."

Denzel Dias of Warner Bros is no better.

"I did hear about this. In fact I read about it somewhere. But we haven't received anything on paper so far. We have had no releases yet after Rush Hour and that was dubbed too. We didn't face any problems with it.

"Where paying for elections is concerned I think that must be untrue. I heard that some producers were having some problems with the dubbed films because they felt that these films were eating into their profits and this is ridiculous.

"We can't ever think of competing with them. And then the films that we dub are the ones that have lots of special effects or action. Those that might attract the Hindi speaking crowd.

"We make a small profit on these films and that is why we take the trouble of dubbing them. Our next films are Payback, Blade and Matrix, none of which we are dubbing yet," says Dias.

Mirani supports some of this. "Actually, the Hollywood companies have to pay the dubbing artistes and that comes to Rs 200,000 or so. They recover that completely. So, in that sense they don't make too much of a profit. Just a little bit."

Mirani, Dias and Fernandes can only be respected for their modesty. In show business, fickle public fancy is proverbial. In India, till date, Hollywood has hit an average of one runaway success for five dubbed films. Is that bad business?

At this point, instead of getting more tedious, it would be best to chuck the bad business theory out the window.

That leaves us with:

1. Political foul play or
2. Envious local producers.

Make a choice. It is yours for the picking.