Wednesday, January 23, 2008

UFO has given a new face to digital movie distribution in India. Can it break the stranglehold of Big Daddy as well?

“We are not even talking to them… for us, the world is a bigger market”, says an exuberant Raaja Kanwar, without a hint of nerves, when asked whether he approached the aforementioned Hollywood studios with his technology. And he can well afford this nonchalance… after all, UFO Moviez has adopted one basic rule of survival – never confront the enemy where he’s in a position of strength.

Consequently, UFO Moviez has totally focussed on revolutionising the Indian film industry with its technology and business model. Out here, Hollywood sharks remain as mean & merciless, but sans the quintessential power they enjoy back home. Hollywood garners just around 4-5% of box office collections in India.

The Indian film industry, which is the largest in the world, churning out approximately 1,000 films every year, stands nowhere near to the Hollywood, when it comes to revenues. The Indian film industry today is valued at about Rs.68 billion. The major culprit for such a low turnover of a robust industry is piracy & inability to release films across the country at one go because of high print costs. That’s where the role of digital cinema comes in. As Kanwar proudly points out, “We opened our first theatre in October 2005 & today we are at 750 theatres in India growing at about 60-80 theatres every month.”

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Source: IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Initiative