Opinion : Delayed projects and impact on producers?

Being a producer in the Tamil Cinema is probably one of the the most difficult jobs. One can go by the history of Tamil Cinema to prove this fact -- GV, Kunjumon, AM Ratnam, Pyramid Saimira, Ayngaran to name just a few high-flying producers who could not sustain their top positions. Many producers in the past came down crashing due to their own failings. But, a number of new producers have been easily taken for a ride by wayward film-makers who take 3 or 4 years to complete the movie. 

Delayed Movies and Failed Producers 

Some of our Tamil directors take 3 to 4 years to complete a run-of-the-mill commercial masala movie due to lack of discipline and poor time management skills. No wonder, these movies get rejected by audience due to out-dated look-and-feel at the time of release. Unfortunately, most of these producers don't get a second chance if they happen to be involved in one of these cursed projects. Let's look at a few examples of new and experienced producers who lost their shirts recently. 

Ameerin Aadhi-Bhagavan - Ameerin Aadhi-bhagavan took exactly 3 years to complete. Even though Ameer may blame the failure of Adhibhagavan on censor board and/or media, the industry believes that the debacle of Aadhibhagavan was due to Ameer's lack of focus as he was bitten by acting bug, involved in FEFSI/union politics and got sucked into a host of other controversies. Even during early days of Ameer, he was never known for his time management skills as Paruthiveeran significantly overshot the budget taking close to 200 days to complete shooting which finally resulted in bitter fight between Studio Green and Ameer.

Poda Podi - Another person who is notorious for long delays in the industry is Simbhu (STR). At any given time, he has at least 3 projects in hand. Podaa Podi took 4 years to complete from the time of its first announcement. After so much delay, it is difficult to comprehend why would Podaa Podi hurry so much to release against Thuppakki only to get swept aside at the box office. Even Simbu's hit movie"Manmadhan" was a case of "operation success, patient dead" as the producer Krishnakanth couldn't recover his investment made in Manmadhan and struggled to release his subsequent movie. STR still continues this 'sprinkler' working-style until now as he switched to "Vaalu" pushing "Vettai Mannan" to back-burner while much touted music album "Love Anthem" not showing any signs of seeing the daylight.

Aayirathil Oruvan and others - Another ambitious first-time producer Ravindran bid adieu after Selvaraghavan's "Aayirathil Oruvan" failed at the box office. The movie again blamed for A certification, over-budget and long delays.

Not only the producers, many popular actors career have taken a nose-dive due to such long delays. Jayam Ravi has risked his career by fully committing himself for Aadhibhagavan during the last couple of years. Karthi did the same during Aayirathil Oruvan. Vikram very well knows the the impact of delay in actor's career as his Bheema got stuck in the cans due to the producer AM Ratnam's financial troubles while his following Kandasamy got hurt by it's director's inability to complete the movie on schedule. 

Lack of Understanding of 'Time Value of Money'

The problem is that our Tamil industry often ignore the fundamental concept of "time value of money". For long-delayed projects, it is often misleading to talk in terms of absolute production costs since the value of money depreciates quickly due to high inflationary conditions. Let's say the producers of Poda Podi or Aadhibhagavan instead of investing ~Rs. 20 Crores in their respective movies, had made fixed deposits in national banks, their investment would have appreciated to Rs. 30 Crores at risk-free interest rate of 10% pa. Even with moderate risk of investing in Indian Stock Market or Real Estates, these producers would have probably doubled their investments without much hassles of producing Tamil movies.

With relatively easy money to be made through other risk-free sources, are our Tamil producers justified in risking their investments getting caught for many years in to funding such undisciplined big budget projects?