Why Is Tamil Cinema Fixated With Box-Office Numbers? The Figures Are Mostly Unreliable

Lokesh Kanagaraj seems to have pulled off what no other Tamil film director has managed so far — the man has given more interviews since the release of Leo than before it. This is both bizarre and revealing.

Welcome to Kollywood, where a director these days not only has to shape a movie, but also chisel the perception around it. Setting up pre-release hype is passé. Ushering in post-release vibes is the in thing.

To be sure, some parts of Kanagaraj's interviews have to do with the reading that some critics may have of his film, even if the movie happens to be Leo.

But a director or actor making himself available post-release is in itself an implicit attempt at driving home the idea that the film in question is a success.

A film release, especially involving big stars, is a public relations jamboree these days.

It is not our case that Leo is a success or not. But the carefully planted — yes, that is the word — details of what the film has collected every day is silly and vain.

In the past, when a film was deemed good, it usually (but not always) succeeded at the box office. In the post-truth world, they are doing it the other way around. They claim huge revenues to drive home the idea that the film is a hit, which is to convey the idea that the film is a success. Sigh!

Of course, this is not limited to Leo alone. We saw this with Jailer earlier. Before that, it was Vikram. The trend is more pronounced with movies featuring big stars.

Fans, one thought, were interested in watching good films. Sure, they discussed aspects like how long a film ran in theatres. But seldom was the film’s revenue a part of the debate.

Talk About Film Financials

Should it matter to fans whether Jailer, Leo, or Vikram made loads of money?

Sure, it can come in handy in social media trash talk. But that is even more problematic. Tailoring everything for brownie points on Twitter or Instagram is a sad way to lead a life. But that is the reality today of fans and stars alike — live and die for visibility on the timeline.

Where box-office numbers have been made to be the summum bonum of a film, they should at least be reliable and true.

Alas, that does not seem to be the case. There is no transparent, peer-approved mechanism to confirm the financial statistics of a film.

Collection reports usually are what the producer says (especially through pliant journalists and chosen social media accounts). There is no way to cross-verify what is carefully leaked.

Needless to say, no producer, unless he is talking to the tax authorities, will provide poor numbers for his venture. So, inflated figures inevitably rule the roost.

Moreover, a successful film can still be a loss-making one for the producer in terms of collections. To understand this anomaly, one has to have an idea about the structure of the film business.

The theatrical receipts constitute the film box office. Producers sell the theatrical rights to distributors, who further hawk it out to theatres for a charge. The earnings from the ticket sales are then divided between the three.

The percentage share varies from one film to another. In Tamil Nadu, where the control over theatres is usurped by the political powers of the day, a film’s success is also linked to it.

And some money has to be shared — unofficially — with the political puppeteers who operate from behind.

Opaque System

Recently, a producer told this writer that, with the situation as it exists today, he himself cannot be sure of collection reports.

Online verification of the numbers is possible only in urban areas. But a huge cluster of cinema halls lies beyond this pale. Hence, even the producer has to go by the figures given by the distributors and theatre owners. And they have their own vested interests to lie about the numbers, one way or another.

Confusion over collection numbers also happens because there is a major distinction between the net figure and the gross figure.

The total theatrical collections of a film constitutes its gross figure. When the entertainment tax kicks in, the remaining figure is called the net figure.

Entertainment tax — a state subject — varies across territories. The entertainment cess is higher in, say, Uttar Pradesh than in Tamil Nadu. It follows then that a film released in film-obsessed Tamil Nadu will make more money for its producer than it will in Uttar Pradesh.

In Bollywood, net box office is taken into account. Down south, they talk about the producer’s share. The point is, for an industry that obsesses about numbers rather than the quality of the cinema it produces, the reporting of business is decidedly and dangerously ambiguous.

Not long ago, one of the leading distributors and theatre owners in Tamil Nadu, Tirupur Subramaniam, was quoted as saying in Firstpost, "In the good old days, MGR was very particular that everybody concerned with a film — from its producer, to the distributor, exhibitor, to the man who runs the canteen and parking lot — made money out of a hit film.

"Today the system is skewered in a way that only the star makes money and increases his salary irrespective of whether the film is a hit or flop."

And that is the only tangible reality of these box-office numbers.

No one can say with certainty how much Leo, Jailer, or Vikram collected. But it can be stated with utmost certainty that Vijay, Rajni (Rajinikanth), and Kamal (Haasan) would be charging decidedly more for their next movie.

Kanagaraj's post-release chats have played their part.