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Friday, March 29 2024
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Demonetisation woes affect Sandalwood!

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The whole of India has been affected by the scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. Business has been affected in various industries. Joining the list is also Sandalwood. The Kannada film industry has seen a decline of viewership in theatres since the last eight days. The main reason for this is that theatres are not accepting Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes.

Speaking about this, Vikram, an exhibitor said, “Kannada industry has suffered a lot. The two big films “Santhu Straight Forward” and “Mukunda Murari” have also seen a dip in their collections. People do not have cash, which has created the problem. Unlike Hindi film industry, which does more business in multiplexes, Kannada films do more business in single screens, where cash is the most preferred transaction. Therefore films are suffering. People are also busy standing in front of banks and ATM’s. Therefore they are giving the films a miss.”

“The situation is likely to continue for two weeks. This week, two films “Badmaash” and “Nataraja Service” are all set to release. They have been delayed several times. I hope that this issue does not affect them. Hopefully the occupancy of the theatres will be more next week, as the situation will be better,” he added.

“John Jani Janardhan”, which was scheduled to release on November 11, was postponed as the makers felt it is not the best time to release the film as people will be left with less cash, which they would prefer to buy on necessities rather than spend on films.

Speaking about postponing the film, a source close to film says, “We were shocked when the issue cropped up. We had marketed the film very well and everybody knew that the film will release on November 11. However, after scrapping of notes, we decided not to release the film. Ours is a family entertainer. With the current situation, family would not prefer coming to theatres. So we decided to postpone the film to December 9. Looking at occupancy rate of all films over India, I think we have made the right decision.”

The situation is expected to get over in a few weeks. Everything is expected to be fine by December. But the major impact of scrapping of notes will be to producers who are known to invest black money. We all know that a film producer has to necessarily invest 60% of his project cost only on hero, heroine and the supporting cast remunerations. Among them, heroes take the lion’s share, wherein the hero is paid in cash as well as cheque. The amount paid in cash is black money. That will be difficult henceforth.

A well known director, who does not want his name to be revealed says, “We all know that black money plays an important role in films. There are so many politicians and businessmen who invest their black money in films. They do not come in front and look after the transactions from behind. They will be affected a lot.”

There are also certain individuals, who produce film to save taxes. Yes, you read it right. A popular businessman produced a Kannada film few years back. The film was technically poor and did not have a big star. It released to poor response and did not even recover publicity costs. It was a big disaster. The businessman is said to have lost Rs 1 crore on the venture, but while filing tax returns, he is said to have filed a loss of Rs 3 crores, thus evading tax.

This is said to be a common norm in all film industries. Or else why would there be more than 150 releases in an industry where the success rate is less than 10 percent. The producers hike up the production cost in books. After the scrapping of notes, this will be difficult.

Scrapping of notes has surely affected film industry for time being. However, it is expected for the betterment of economy. Let us wait and see, whether it will benefit the film industry in the long run.

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