An Indian, wherever he/she is, will always be an Indian by heart and the earning of Bollywood films at box office abroad makes it more evident. Recently, Amitabh Bachchan’s Badla has made more than $1.3 million in the United States within five weeks.
Despite Badla being more of content-driven film than star-led Indian film, the film was embraced by NRI audiences abroad. Similarly, Vicky Kaushal’s war drama Uri: The Surgical Strike played in the United States for 10 weeks, making $2.7 million and for eight weeks in the United Kingdom, earning £133,536. Earlier, family drama Badhaai Ho had collected $1.8 million in the United States and £ 241,488 in the United Kingdom, both in a span of eight weeks.
The collection of Bollywood films at box office shows how NRI audience still crave for a taste of home and typical song, dance and color, non-mainstream narrative, and faces.
“A big surprise this year has been the success of films like Badla and Uri abroad, without the typical commercial ingredients,” said trade analyst Taran Adarsh. “Gone are the days when only the three Khans could bring in big numbers, now the market has gone beyond stars and content we thought would work.”
“Initially, the word-of-mouth used to travel slower, now it’s travelling much faster (thanks to social media) so we’re looking at a kind of global audience now,” said Gaurav Verma, chief revenue officer at Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment and co-producer of Badla. Unlike earlier, most Indian films are now released in overseas territories at the same time as India.
“We talk about global television which is Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, but now there is an audience for the film in every market simultaneously so if the reviews are good, the mediums for the audience to engage on are common and they will start reacting to it,” Verma said. “Also earlier, you’d depend on U.S. or UK-based citizens but now there are a lot of expats going to study or work in countries like North America, Australia and Singapore and these are all people who are consuming films. In the last 5-6 years, the shift has come in.”
What has also happened is that studios have adapted to this change, Verma added, utilizing digital mediums much more, reaching out to more consumers and making them aware of their content. Apart from regular dissemination of favourable reviews, most movie promotional events and trailer launches are streamed live on platforms like Facebook, for everyone to see.
A lot of filmmakers see this as reflective of the change in movie viewing within India, in general.
“Earlier, the earnings of these (content-led) films used to be in the Rs. 60-70 crore range in India, if you look at our older projects like Kahaani, Drishyam, Mary Kom, and Queen whereas they now look at Rs. 100-120 crore so it’s a shift we see even in India. NRIs are very closely following what the Indian audience and media reaction is to smaller films and that word-of-mouth is now starting to take effect in terms of their actual actions also,” said Ajit Andhare, chief operating officer, Viacom18 Motion Pictures whose black comedy thriller Andhadhun played in the U.S. for 10 weeks, making $841,958.
Both Verma and Andhare feel overseas markets need to be approached with careful calculation, instead of simply going for a wide release in as many territories as possible.
“If you know the content well, you can geo-market and plan prints accordingly,” Verma said. For example, while Red Chillies went with 300 prints of Badla in the Gulf, there were only 95 in the U.S. but those were based on the performance of previous films that targeted a similar genre or audience to see which specific location would take to it.
Andhare also added that apart from NRI audiences in traditional overseas territories, content-led cinema is now tasting success even in markets like China whose audience has nothing to do with Indian culture. Andhadhun has crossed Rs. 200 crore in China.
“The expectation from overseas markets is certainly going to be factored into our business plans now, which was not the case three years ago so things are changing,” Andhare said.
