Revenue-sharing: Exhibitors refuse to bend

The grievance that has been brewing since late last year revolves around a demand by distributors to exhibitors to share revenue on a 50:50 ratio. “The current revenue share for distributors is 43 per cent,which has been raised from last year’s 42 per cent even though the total revenue we generate from box-office collections is the same as last year,” Dhingra said.

Beginning with a power-point presentation,Shravan Shroff,MD,Fame India Limited,pointed to the rise in revenue generation over the last eight years with the rise of multiplexes. It followed a similar news conference yesterday,where the likes of Siddharth Roy Kapur (UTV Motion Pictures),Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt (Vishesh Films),Yash Chopra (Yash Raj Films) and Sandeep Bhargava (The Indian Film Company) raised their grievances against exhibitors and the issue of not letting movies run long enough in their halls,pulling them out after a handful of screenings. “We take as much risk as producers do. So if a film like Heroes does badly,I have to pull it out soon. I don’t care if it stars a Salman Khan or Priyanka Chopra in it,I have to run my business,” Shroff said.

Though producers and distributors suggest that the judging of a film as flop or success on basis of the opening week collections is unfair,Shroff pointed to the efficiency with which piracy is controlled in the South for at least the first two to three weeks,which,he said,is not the case here. However,Dhingra,Shroff and others present such as Alok Tandon,COO,INOX,and Vishal Kapur,COO,Fun Cinemas,said they are open to arbitration and discussion.

“We need to fix a benchmark threshold for revenue-sharing,” Shroff suggested,but refused to give an estimate or bracket within which the revenue-sharing ratios could be raised,or reduced. Meanwhile,the fate of upcoming releases such Jashan,Kaminay,Shortkut,Life Partner,Luck,New York and Paying Guest still hangs in air.