Indian movies hit a low, post-Dog

THE much-touted post-Slumdog Millionaire boom cannot come too soon for the Indian film industry, with domestic box-office takings slumping to record lows this year.

Even as India became the toast of Hollywood last month, with the low-budget movie sweeping eight Oscars at the Academy Awards, the local film industry suffered an all-time ticketing revenue low, grossing 430 million rupees ($13.1million) in February, from a high of $89 million in December.

The figures, published in The Times of India, are a blow to the industry, which is banking on a Slumdog-led bounce in the face of a global financial downturn that is beginning to affect India's economy.

Since Slumdog's Oscar success, industry observers have been predicting nothing less than a Periclean era for Bollywood, with more collaborations between foreign and local movie production houses, greater appreciation of Bollywood's peculiar charms and even a Slumdog-led tourism recovery.

But analysts say the forecast for Bollywood is looking grim for the foreseeable future.

While the British-directed film about the travails of a Mumbai slum dweller has earned more than $US160million ($252million) worldwide, Indian audiences account for just $US6million of that.

Despite the lukewarm response domestically, explained in part by Indian audiences' distaste for gritty realism, Fox Star India, which backed and distributed the Danny Boyle film, is in talks with multiplexes to expand the film's run across more cinemas. India's film industry has traditionally weathered economic storms by churning out the sort of exuberant spectacles that have come to symbolise the Bollywood brand.

Rajeev Masand, a film critic and industry analyst for Indian cable channel CNN/IBN, told The Australian yesterday that while the first five months of the year were traditionally slow for India's film industry, the latest figures reflected "an air of caution" among moviegoers.

"The economy is completely responsible," he said.

However, other analysts say the box-office slump reflects not only the economic downturn, which has seen mass job layoffs in recent months, but a disconnect between new Hollywood players in the local market and Bollywood's traditional fans.

In the past 18 months large Hollywood production companies have forged joint ventures with local producers. Sony Pictures, Walt Disney, NBC Universal, Viacom and Warner Bros have invested more than $US1.5billion in India. India's UTV Motion Pictures has co-production deals with Disney and Fox Searchlight, and Indian businessman Anil Ambani's Reliance Entertainment last September signed a deal with Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG for a new Hollywood film company.

But the Disney co-produced Hindi animation film Roadside Romeo and the kung-fu meets Bollywood Warner Bros movie Chandni Chowk to China were both major flops.

Trade analyst Komal Nahata said such movies had so far concentrated too heavily on marketing at the expense of plot and mass audience appeal.

"Hollywood production houses need to know that money is not everything."

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