Why is Tamil Film Industry dysfunctional?

by Raven

Hollywood film ‘Man Of Steel’ has publicly announced their release Worldwide on June 14^th 2013. How is it possible for Hollywood movies to announce the release date on the day of commencement of the project with such precision while our Tamil movies have no clue even 4 days prior to release date. In this regard, even Bollywood and Telugu films are way better-off since they announce their release date at least a few months in advance.

This is a problem uniquely affecting our big budget Tamil films of late. A few months ago, Billa 2 could not announce their release date until 4 days prior to originally planned release date. Maattrraan could not release in all overseas locations due to re-recording delays. Now yet another big budget film, Thuppakki, has just pushed out the release date again after the advance booking opened in a few theatres. 

This has huge impact on local distributors and overseas distributors. They cannot do local promotions as they are not sure of the release date until the prints reach them (virtually and physically). Also, many small budget film-makers are affected as they work out the release of their films based on the release of big budget films. Many possible reasons quoted for this chaotic situation including,

• With proliferation of digital prints, it is only in the eleventh hour when most of these big budget films go for the censoring process. 

• Another trend afflicting Tamil Industry is Tamil directors doing the re-recording after the censor procedures are completed. Going by the rule books, this is technically not allowed under CBFC rules. But, our directors get away during censor process with dummy sounds since nobody has officially lodged a complaint with CBFC. Even though this process may have found its roots during last decade, this re-recording after censor is becoming a norm for movies involving Harris Jayaraj.

• The matters get worse as many hand-offs are involved resulting in lack of accountability and commitment among parties. (e.g., Billa 2 was transferred from IN entertainment to Aascar, Maattrraan from AGS to Eros & Studio Green, Thuppakki from Dhanu to Gemini Film Circuit, Poda Podi from Gemini Film Circuit to Hitesh Jabak). Until recently, Dhaanu and GFC were fighting tooth and nail over who makes the key decisions about audio release and other important dates.

Such level of unprofessionalism will not be tolerated in any other mature industry or businesses. It is high time our Tamil film-makers and production houses show some professionalism by exhibiting better planning, fixing & sticking to the announced release dates. This would also bring down the anxiety levels of distributors and ardent fans.

UTV provides glimmer of hope 

However, there is some glimmer of hope in this highly dysfunctional Tamil film Industry. A few exceptions this year have been the movies produced by UTV Motion Pictures. UTV released two big Tamil movies recently, Mugamoodi and Thaandavam. UTV was able to announce the release dates well in advance as they had a clear pre-release plan and executed it to the T. Hope rest of the production houses learn a few things from these corporate production houses about managing to plan and deadlines.