09 October,2009 09:26 AM IST | | Upala KBR
As the three big Diwali releases, All The Best, Main Aurr Mrs Khanna and Blue, are gearing up for release, it comes to light that both the films have broken all records of promotions budgets for a film.
While Devgn Productions claim they've spent Rs 5 crore on publicity sources say they have actually spent double of that. While Blue has apparently spent 12 crores to create curiosity about their film. Main Aurr Mrs Khanna also releases on Diwali. Producer Sohail Khan, says, "I don't think publicity budgets need to be fixed. It depends from producer to producer."
In the South, there is a fixed sum that the producers can spend on the publicity of a film. They can't go beyond that. This is done to protect smaller producers, who don't have deep pockets. This way of functioning helps the whole industry.
Ajay Devgn's All The Best has been apparently made at a cost of more than 35 crore.u00a0 Director Rohit Shetty, says, "Publicity budgets have increased between 25-30 per cent in the last one year. There are many avenues like more channels, websites and paid advertising avenues opening up which has drastically increased the publicity budgets of films. This cuts into the profit of the films as then the film needs to recover that extra Rs 4 crore spent on publicity. I think there should be some regulatory body fixing the costs."
Shree Ashtavinayak, producers of Blue have apparently spent almost 12 crore on the publicity.u00a0 According to Dhilin Mehta, "The publicity amount to be spent on each movie differs from project to project. The publicity budget of Blue is much higher then that of Kidnap because the film is big, the underwater concept is being used for the first time in India. The estimate of the publicity budget of the film is roughly decided when we prepare the budget of the film before the start of the shoot, and varies between 8 to 10%u00a0 of the film's cost. "
Sajid Nadiadwala who spent more than 9 crore on the publicity of his last release Kambakkht Ishq, agrees that the publicity budget of a film is fixed according to the cost of the film, "Budgets have increased many times over the last couple of years because to create awareness of a film all over the world, we have to put up hoardings and get the stars to various promotional activities, so the cost is bound to increase. I wouldn't like any association imposing their limit on me. The control of the budget should be self-regulatory."
Vashu Bhagnani, who is said to have spent a whopping 15 crore on his son Jackky's debut film, Kal Kissne Dekha, says, "The publicity budgets have almost doubled in the last three years. Whereas earlier we would spend Rs 1 lakh on TV ads now it has become almost six lakhs for a TV spot.
Then new avenues have opened up and there is also radio, and websites now. Earlier, I wouldn't have spent Rs 1 on a website but today I have to spend almost 40 lakh on websites like Yahoo!. As far as putting a fixed limit on publicity budgets, I am doing something with regard to that."
Publicity steamrollers
Nasser Khan, the producer of Shadow spent almost 12 crore on the publicity of the film while the film's budget was made at 16 crore. Boney Kapoor spentu00a0 less than eight crore for Wanted.
Karan Johar is said to have spent almost 10 crore on publicity for Wake Up Sid.
Akshay Kumar hired a private plane to take him and Deepika for the global premiere of Chandni Chowk to China. The team started out in Los Angeles, then traveled to New York, Toronto, London, Dubai, and Bangkok and ended in Delhi.
Himmesh Reshammiya took auto rickshawalas to Germany for a shoot.
3 Idiotsu00a0 is planning concerts in big cities in India.
The last publicity war
The last time the promotion war was seen, was in 2007, when Shah Rukh starrer Om Shanti Om clashed with multinational film company Sony Pictures' Saawariya. OSO director Farah Khan says they didn't spend much on promotion, "We had heard Sony, the producers of Saawariya, had a budget of 20 crore and we couldn't compete with that kind of budget. Three- fourth of our publicity was for free through innovative ideas, smart strategies and goodwill. The publicity budget has increased today as promotion is the name of the game. A bad film gets a good opening because of the hype and hoopla while a good film may not get a decent opening because of non-publicity."
Trade analyst, Taran Adarsh says, "Earlier, films used to made at 15 crore but now the producer spends that amount of money promoting his film thus inflating his film budget. But that's the name of the game.u00a0 A producer needs to spend an extra amount for his publicity because even his distributors want to know how he's publicising his film. Yes, budgets have escalated beyond control but it's a democratic country and its up to a producer how much he wants to spend on publicising his film."
