Friday, May 22, 2020

Challenges for Kollywood ahead and an Iron Man Chintamani Murugesan



If the Iron Man `Chintamani’ Murugesan  had way back in 1993 relented, doing business in  Kollywood would be easy and beneficial to all stake holders in movie business. Post Covid, the Tamil filmdom is going to witness an election to Producer’s Council, Nadigar Sangham and opening up of a new platform called OTT for the Tamil Aaam aadmi. The restrictions put in place over number of employees to work in a film unit are going to make the workers depend on the movie business, a restless lot.
Uzhaippali, a P Vasu film with Rajinikanth – Roja in the cast and produced by Chandamama – Vijaya Productions that draws it lineage from Nagi Reddy was hot property. Rajini and Vasu was hit combo. Now Murugesan with an undisputed hold over the film trade says that the actors should take a cut in their salary as returns for distributors after settling theaters was meager or in a deficit. Those days the film was bought outright for 5 years. Hit or miss, it was the distributor’s lookout. Regular producer’s had an edge as they had the dates of stars whom the distributors banked on for their forthcoming projects.  Rajini says that if actor’s are the cause of a film loss, then he would not take payment and instead keep some areas for distribution.  He decides to keep the NSC area of Uzhaippali  for distribution. NSC is North- South- Arcot Area, those that include Kanchipuram- Thirivalluvar- Chengalpet areas. In short the adjoining areas of Chennai. City- NSC area was the top selling area. The letter from Producer to Distributor Association stated that NSC area has been given to Rajinikanth and he will do as he likes. Many producers were happy over this move as it gave them relief from settling Star’s rising fees. Some distributors too said that when actors learn the real worth after becoming distributor, they would cut the salary.
Today most of the Bollywood biggies have actors as co-producers and in Andhra, actors take only 10% as advance and a share of the business. Only in Kodambakkam, the hero gets paid in full before release and a 50% advance. Now the situation has changed with many fly by night distributors putting the actor’s on the block to settle the dues, if they want to see the film released. As publicity is already done, many of the new crops of heroes were caught in this trap. Now as alarm bells are ringing, many have got cold feet.
Coming back to Uzhaippali, though Murugesan lost the battle, the victory of Rajinikanth remained a flash in point. It was business as usual. Kamal took other South States distribution and other language remake rights. Later , he shifted to a first copy basis by which he produced the film for an agreed amount to the producer. Now for Indian 2, he is said to hold some area rights and that includes North India. He had put forth an idea by which a film would get theatrical and release over satellite DTH networks at the same time. Theater lobby revolted. Today, movies are to get premiered on OTT which will be on every DTH platform and on every online piracy site. So who is the loser?
Chintamani Murugesan, the President of the Association, said that if actors started being distributors, then distributors would have to be film reps who reported theater collections to the actor. Also a rule was in force that a non- member cannot distribute a film. If the Association issued a Red Card, theatres would not give any advance to the distributor. This was a major source of finance for a producer. Egged by Rajanikanth, the Production house held a pooja. Distributors usually turned up at the pooja and gave the advance amount. This did not happen. Many actors including Sivaji Ganesan came but that can only be a morale booster and not  cash to the producer. There was even some bullying tactics. Hotels at locations of shoot were not offering discounts on threat of boycott from other producer’s as they were in line with the Murugesan ban.
As release date neared, Rajanikanth met Kamal Haasan and drove down to Meeran Sahib Street ( also known as Ritchie Street, Next to India Silk House in Anna Salai). The street ,where film distributors and smuggled electronic goods and spare part dealers set shop, he met Murugesan and had a talk. Nothing happened. Meanwhile there was a cross current happening against Murugesan.. AVM’s Yejamaan was to release as the dispute was going on and it was exempted from the Red Card. The collections were high. As in many cases, the issue reached the CM. It was Jayalalithaa. Chandamama Vijaya productions handed over the NSC rights to Ramana distributors of Rajinikanth. Many theatres defying the ban had already given advance to the Producer and bypassed the distributors. The ban flopped. Rajini did not bear any grudge. He asked the Producer to not hold any 100 day function as it would mean rubbing salt in the wound of Murugesan. His fans did hold a function and honored the loyal theaters.
It was at the function of 200 days of Padaiayappa that one saw Muthukumariah son of Murugesan presenting a huge silver sword to Rajanikanth. Murugesan’s son was the distributor of the film. The battle saw the start of the decline of a man called Iron Man who ruled the all powerful body that controlled the business for 18 long years. Sometimes life’s twists and turns are more creative than any scriptwriter. Murugesan was hauled to court by the executive body and stripped of all rights and put as associate member with no voting rights. Murugesan had a lifestyle around which filmdom revolved. Being a close friend of Mathioli Shanmugham, then brain behind GV and Kayaar and a trade pundit, I was privy to many meetings of the Iron Man. He came to his office in Meeran Sahib Street in the morning. He had called panchayat ( disputes) to handle. By noon, he moved to his room in Cosmopolitan Club. He then had his session and in company of his aides who were also took part in the morning meetings. He then had his food and went to sleep. Woke up in the night, changed to yet another starched kurta and mundu and did a small prayer. With holy ash on his forehead, fresh as ever, he came back to his office. The dispute meet continued and sometimes past midnight, the decision was taken. Distributors and theater owers waiting in labs gave extra money to take delivery of prints. It was derisively referred as spreading the towel by the producer to pick the crumbs to release the film. Today, it has shifted to office of those who hold the rights of digital release in theaters. Then it was called strike order and now it is KDM that gets a film coming alive on your screen.



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