Quarter Of Bollywood Films Made Big Money In 2015

For the selected few producers and financers investing in Bollywood films seems to have paid rich dividend this year. Around a quarter of the Bollywood films released till date (90-plus Bollywood films have released till December 1, 2015) have given 120-150 per cent return on investment (RoI). Which means these films not only covered their respective cost of production, marketing and publicity, but made handsome profit too.

Noticeable low to medium budget movies that made headlines not only for their storyline, direction and screenplay but for setting the cash registers ringing include films like NH-10 (made for Rs 13 crore; grossed around Rs 40 crore), Pyaar Ka Punchnama-2 (budget at Rs 15-18 crore, generated around Rs 68-70 crore), Piku (Rs 30-35 crore budget; generated Rs 85-90 crore) and several others including Hunterrr, Badlapur, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, and Brothers. These success stories are among the list of 20-odd films released this year that have reportedly set the cash registers ringing. Talvar from director Meghna Gulzar also made money, experts said. Others that also did well and gave promising returns to their investors include ABCD-2, Dil Dhadkane Do, Roy and Drishyam among others.

Of course, there are the obvious two big films of 2015 starring super star Salman Khan - Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo - which together generated over Rs 550 crore at the domestic box-office. The reported cost of these two films is much less than Rs 180 crore.

Exhibitors Post Profit
Cinema exhibition chain PVR Limited's profit-after-tax (PAT) clocked five times in the second quarter (July-September). The company's net profit stood at Rs 41.1 crores as against of Rs 8.2 crores in the same period last year riding on the back of 21 per cent growth in its consolidated revenue that stood at Rs 484.1 crore. Consolidated EBITDA for Q2FY16 was Rs 100 crore (EBITDA margin 20.7 per cent) as against Rs 58 crores (EBITDA Margin 14.5 per cent) in the same period last year, up 73 per cent.

The strong numbers come on the back of the successful performance of films like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Baahubali, Welcome Back, Drishyam, and Mission Impossible at the box office, experts said.

For PVR, July was by far the best month with both Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Baahubali did a very good business, says PVR Ltd’s chief financial officer Nitin Sood.

"August was good as well with a spillover from July coupled with releases like Brothers and Welcome Back, which carried the momentum. September was slow though," said Sood.

Even the footfall for PVR, a company having presence across 44 cities and offers 477 screens across its 107 properties, jumped by 20 per cent to 18.8 million.

Multiplex operator Inox Leisure also posted a fourfold rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 20.51 crore for the second quarter ended September 30. The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 5.23 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal. Total income on a consolidated basis stood at Rs 355.38 crore in the quarter under review, up from Rs 265.94 crore in the same period last fiscal, Inox Leisure had said in a statement.

"The line-up of blockbuster content has led to an increase in footfalls, average ticket prices, and an overall increase in sales and profitability figures," the company said.

"With the opening of new properties and a continued pipeline of quality content, we hope to maintain the growth momentum in the forthcoming quarters and deliver a world-class film viewing experience to our patrons, and enhance value to our stakeholders," it added.

Digital cinema distribution firm and ad platform UFO Moviez also posted a net profit of 16.52 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2015 showing a growth of 19 per cent year-on-year.

Revenues at the company increased 18 per cent to Rs 148.25 crore from Rs 125.6 crore from the same period last year. In the first half of this year, the company’s advertisement revenue also grew 37.8 per cent to Rs 70.7 crore from Rs 51.3 crore in H1FY15. The average number of advertisement minutes sold per show per screen also increased to 3.83 minutes from 2.92 minutes in the corresponding half last year.

UFO operates a satellite-based, digital cinema distribution network using its UFO-M4 platform. The company’s digitization and delivery model allows same day release of movies across India.

"The expansion of Caravan Talkies is progressing as per plan and we expect this business to begin contributing meaningfully at an operating level soon. We also delivered strong growth in revenues driven by E Cinema VPF, sale of products and increase in advertisement volumes," said Kapil Agarwal, joint managing director of UFO Moviez.

UFO says it has created a pan-India, in-cinema advertising platform with long-term advertising rights to 3,690 screens, with an aggregate seating capacity of approximately 1.79 million viewers and a reach of 1,882 locations. The platform also allows small exhibitors who otherwise are not able to effectively monetize their advertising inventory due to their limited scale and reach to receive a greater share of advertising revenue.