Nope this is not about Parthiban’s Houseful. That was a gem. Outlook’s note on how multiplexes are re-defining the meaning of houseful, in this not-so-interesting article, is interesting.
Strangely, alongwith the outsourcing stuff, we are also inheriting the Hollywood’s way of movies in India. Bollywood with it’s wider audience, is obviously the first market to catch the trend of opening weekend box-office. The article lists numbers that clearly show how producers/directors are more interested to grab the eyeballs during the opening weekend rather than relying on repeat audience or deferred success.
The other pleasant/unpleasant is the audience segmentation. It’s a long awaited wish to have more movies made specifically for genres. For years, Indian cinema has been a one-stop-shop for all types of entertainment. It had a family drama, a steamy romance, a touching sentiment and moving saga. But as the example on the article quotes Kya Kool Hain Hum, a supposedly mega-hit of the year, wasn’t an all-in-one fare. It was targeted the youth and despite being a super-hit, the movie only reached it’s targeted audience. Such segmentation is certainly a welcoming move but it’s harmful too. Too many movies for the urban youth will just endup as a saturated market, after a year. Just like what happened during the late 90’s in kollywood. With Agathiyan’s Kaathal Kottai, innumerable movies of were produced as variances of the movie only to tire the audience after a year.
From the article, Housefull! (But… Kitne Aadmi Thhe?)
In a nutshell, there are far more avenues to catch a film and that has led to a concomitant reduction in crowds at any one theatre. The same number of people can now view a film in a week as would have earlier in a month. No wonder, most films are making money in the very first week itself, at times just the first weekend is enough to recover the cost of a film. “What a film makes in 15 days today is as good as what it used to make in 15 weeks earlier. The duration of the a film’s run may have declined but the collections have risen,” claims Mehta.
kirukkal.com 
7 responses to “Redefining houseful !!”
Its right, some movies do not even see people, but in the media, the movies are said to be blockbusters. This is really dissapointing and fooling the viewers.
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The concept of repeat audience are a thing of past for Tamil movies too….and in my opinion one man who is bearing the brunt of absence of repeat audience is Kamal. He is one man who in the last 10-12 years has depended on repeat audience (people who enjoy his movies thoroughly)
for decent hits. As he moves away from main stream masala and creates a niche for himself, he has been losing the general audience steadily and repeat audience have been his only hope in the last few years to make a movie run. Now even that avenue is slowly disappearing. I seriously doubt whether he will ever again give hit like a Thevar Magan or Avvai Shanmugi.
And at last Lazy there is something regards movies we both agree upon…Parthiban’s Houseful was a gem.
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your last statement was surprisingly true, fullstop.
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since early 1990s kamal indoubtedly moved from totally masala movies to movies that incorporate masala aspects within it in order to try and make a different movie. no doubt, he is hard hit due to lack of repeat audience, but for his movies, the repeat audience has always been A and B centers i.e. middle class and above strata of society. the problem is now with the easy availability of computers and vcds, that strata will come out to see a kamal movie in the theatre probably once or twice, and see it beyond that either on their computer or vcd player. that is where he is hit badly. secondly, he cannot truly make a masala movie again for people will always pan that venture. he will never get that easy review as does anyone else making the same masala movie. he is truly between a rock and a hard place when it comes to his movie making ventures.
katz
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i watched the movie Black, the opening weekend in PVR Gold class( The first and last time i’ll ever see a movie there; Rs500 per ticket!! The experience is definitely overwhelming by any moviegoer’s standards, but the guilt eats into you later when you sit at home and wonder how you blew up 500 bucks on a movie and even more so for one that didn’t feature Rajini/Kamal in it.)
Well, back to the point i was trying to make. There were empty seats during the opening weekend and I could comfortably get tickets. I almost felt like I was watching a movie that didnt have too many takers.
And Mr.Fullstop, When i saw Virumaandi, i knew Kamal still had it in him. The way the plot unfolds is reminiscent of Tarantino. But Mumbai Express killed it all. It wasn’t even funny !
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Mr Arun,
Virumandi was no big money spinner. It was a hit allright and Kamal must have surely made profit out of it. But surely Virumandi was no Thevar Magan as far as box offcie collection goes(if u r talking about the quality of the movie Virumandi was a better effort than Thevar Magan in my opinion.)
And Mr Arun….i am surprised you did not find MX funny. I found it to be pretty good and a welcome change from the usual Wodehousian humour in Kamal’s other comedies.
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mutRupuLLi,
I too agree Virumandi was a much better effort. I’d be really happy if he made more films like Guna, Virumandi and Aalavandhan(its a great movie, the people who don’t like it can go to hell!)
I occasionally do like his comedies(Sati Leelavathi) but i’d like it if he made more of Virumandi, Thevar Magan and Kurudhi Punal than Panchatantiram, Mumbai Xpress, PKS and god forbid, Nala Damayanthi.
I really want the old Kamal back who likes to experiment. Not the new Kamal who is a sellout. Mumbai Xpress was totally a summer vacation movie for the Kids.
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