Friday, June 25, 2021

Kerala's first Rs 100 cr film Marakkar to face litmus test

Kerala's first Rs 100 cr budget film Marrakkar - Lion of Arabian Sea is also the first to announce the release date - August 12th, Will it give profits to the producer who has waited for more than a year to release it? How will the markets outside Kerala receive  it ? Will Kerala market and Onam season alone help the producer to recover his money ?. These questions will get an answer and if positive it will further lead to more projects. At present, another Rs 100 cr + project from Kerala is Barroz, a period film with Mohanlal ( also hero in Marakkar) who directs and plays the protagonist.

As previous Eid was a washout with no release, film trade looks to Independence Day- Dusheera ( Puja in South) and Deepavali holidays to release films in theaters. As far as North markets are concerned, Marakkar will see less screens as Akshaay Kumar's Bell Bottom ( July end - August start) onward and next his Sooryavanshi, John Abraham’s Satyameva Jayate 2 and Hollywood film Fast and Furious 9 are fixed for release.

The Tamil- Telugu markets as of now have no big pan Indian film release in August and so the screening of Marakkar in these regions should not be as big a problem. In Tamil, the big ticket films Annatthe ( Rajinikanth) is scheduled for November Diwali release. Before that only Sivakarthikeyan's Doctor, Vijay Sethupathi's Laabam and Arun Vijay's Border  and maybe Simbu's  Maya might release in August. If it does than Marakkar will see less screens in Tamil Nadu. In September, Balakrishna's Akahanda in AP- TS markets is scheduled and KGF 2 the Kannada film with pan Indian appeal is expected to come around this time. Before that there seems to be no biggies for release.

The Kerala market has been made safe by a settlement between three main players whose films are ready to release. Marakkar will have a three weeks free run ( no other movie will release) and then next will be Nivin Pauly's Thuraimukhom and Dulquar Salman's Kurup. These two will have a three week gap in release dates. The theaters - distributors of Kerala have reached a pact on this.

The trade is watching whether Kerala box office alone can prop up Marakkar. The highest grosser was Odiyan produced by Antony ( also Marakkar producer) with Mohanlal. It grossed around Rs 54 crores worldwide gross and after distribution commissions gave Rs 30- 35 crores to the producer. It had close to 3000 screens release. The budget was Rs 50 crores. This was in Jan 2018.

Moving back to  October 2016, PuliMurugan with Mohanal as hero collected Rs 152 crores gross and a profit of Rs 90-95 crores after commission and taxes. The budget was just Rs 25 crores !!!. Marakkar like PuliMurugan is expected to be  big on content as Priyadarshan- Lal combo has worked very well. The films that worked for the combo were comic  capers.  Priyan has not worked on a period film on such a big scale. A lot rides on Marakkar's box office for Kerala film industry.

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