Here's why Bollywood needs to stop making films with limited appeal

The year 2016 has been a good one for Bollywood so far. Barely four months in and the Box Office has seen a number of films with quality content, including Wazir, Airlift, Neerja and Kapoor and Sons.

However, what these four films have in common - outside of the fact that they've all recieved glowing critical reviews - is the type of audiences they catered to. While all four films won acclaim from the critics as well the audiences in the metros, they failed to replicate this success at the single screens. The limited appeal of Bollywood films - in the past few years - has led to a massive change in the distribution pattern of Bollywood films.

A decade ago, the single screens were a distributors' top priority. However, with over 70 per cent of Bollywood films now being made with the city/multiplex audiences in mind, more and more distributors are opting for limited release of their films rather than releasing them at mass-dominated circuits.

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The share of the distributor tends to influence this decision. In terms of a multiplex release, the distributors' share in week one is 52.5 per cent of the total ticket rate - which goes down to 44.5 per cent and 38 per cent in the subsequent weeks. Single screens still follow the traditional manner of film distribution - in comparison to the procedure followed by multiplexes. Distributors have to pay weekly rental to showcase their film at single screens and only then can they stake claim to the collections.

With more and more films being targeted to audiences at metros, distributors at mass circuits find it difficult to even recover the weekly single screen rental. Releasing the film at single screens therefore becomes a risky proposition - that many a distributor chooses to simply opt out of.

However, this trend works against the single screens. With just about 30 per cent of films catering towards the small towns, it becomes difficult for the single screen owners to maintain the theatre since they have no income in particular for rest of the year. While many a single screen across the country is now battling financial issues, countless others are shutting down every day.

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Photo: a film still

The single screen rental remains constant for all Hindi films. To elaborate, here's two Bollywood films and their distributor shares:

Salman Khan's 2015 film Bajrangi Bhaijaan raked in a total of Rs 320 crore in terms of Box Office collections.

On the other hand, Aamir Khan's 2014 film PK raked in Rs 340 crore. Now, despite PK performing better than Bajrangi Bhaijaan at the Box Office - the later has recorded better distributors' share since it had a great run at the single screens across India - whereas PK appealed more towards the multiplex audiences.

Photo: a film still

The reason for Bajrangi Bhaijaan having better distributor share than PK is simple:

The entire revenue of Bajrangi Bhaijaan from the single screen minus the weekly rental goes to the distributors. However in terms of multiplex, only a certain percentage of the amount belongs to the distributors.

We hope, with passing times, Bollywood comes up with more and more films that will find acceptance with both multiplex and single screen audiences - a move that will benefit the industry as a whole.

* Gross Collections = Total Ticket Rates (Admission Charges + Entertainment Tax); Nett Collections = Gross Collections - Taxes