As Kaduva Malayalam film producer- hero Prithviraj- director Shsaji Kailas have on the fourth day itself released a success teaser , box office figures of Kerala theater collections show that it was nothing much to celebrate. On the fourth day the Kerala box office gross stood at Rs 11.45 crores ( film was released on July 6th). On day one, the collection was Rs 2 crore . Same day producer and film team started the `success' yatra. The budget is Rs 20 crores and to collect the investment, film has to collect Rs 40 crores at theaters. As Kaduva is no Vikram, from Monday the box office will not take a dramatic rise outside Kerala.
Those who point out that Kaduva opening collections was equal to 8 days of Prithviraj's Jana Gana Mana should also tell that the film was not made at Rs 20 crore and the slow pickup for the content value and that it stayed away from a formulaic stereotyped Prithiviraj film had worked.
Kerala Film Producers Association released a list of 6 films that it termed were hits- Bhisma Parvam - CBI 5 ( Mammooty) , Jana Gana Mana ( Prithviraj) - Hridyam ( Pranava Mohanlal), Jo and Jo and Super Sharanya ( no stars). Though makers of Arrattu and Lalettan fans claimed it was a box office hit and celebrated it, the truth was else where. Kaduva is yet another Arrattu with a real life story tag to it. Prithviraj for his BO standing needs to make Kaduva , a hit. He has taken the job of a Pan Indian film director from KGF producers and he cannot afford to be an average at BO in Kerala.
Two of Mammooty films that ran had the Megastar playing a little more than a middle aged man. Budgets were reasonable and that is why CBI 5 was a profit for the producer. Hridyam victory was the low budget- new music director and a no over hype . Malayalam films released on OTT directly was 35. Out of these, majority of the films were on local OTT platforms. Big guns like Amazon- Netflix - Hotstar backed big names and even funded them.
Now as Producers - Theater owners are saying that no film without stars is getting an opening and whether this means that audience will come only if there is a STAR, they fail to see that most of the films had no content that made anybody want to come to the theater. It did not offer any entertainment and that is why relatively upcoming actors films like Jo JO and Super Sharanya worked.
OTT players based out of Kerala in probability will have a field day as there is a spate of small budget films releasing and vanishing at a rapid pace and a bigger numbers that are ready but cannot find a distributor or have the money to take it themselves to movie halls. All these might land up at local OTT players door step. It might help the OTT players in the short run and no gain for producers. After a spate of content devoid films flood these OTT, the subscriber base will shrink. Most of the small players are using the pay per view model.
The coming six months are exciting and a real box office explosion is expected. After a long gap comes Nivin Pauly with Asif Ali in Mahaveerayar , fantasy film on July 21, next day comes Faahad Fazil, seen only on OTT platforms is back to big screen with Malayankunju and has A R Rahman music. On July 28th, Vikrant Rona the Kannada film of Sudeep is releasing. After KGF 2 success, Kannada films have got acceptability in Kerala. Apart from this the film is distributed by Dulquar Salman's company.
Though not officially confirmed, Paapan with Suresh Gopi and Joshy as director is likely to come on July 29th. In August 5th, Dulquar's Telegu film SitaRaman is to release. His previous Tamil outing Hey Sinamika in Kerala did not create any ripples but this time, actor is expected to promote Sita Raman in a big way. On Agust 11, Kerala exhbitors are gungho about Aamir Khan Lal Singh Chaddha as Malayali audience have always given Aamir the thumbs up. On same day, Vikram's Cobra is releasing and so is Tovino's Thallumala. Vikram who once had a very good market in Kerala after Kamal Haasan from Kollywod, it is now wasted as many of his films flopped and some were OTT releases. Tovino after Minnal Murali hit is now in the red as all later releases were washouts.
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