Small films are next big thing By Allu Sirish - 1

Using the 80:20 principle – we can safely say that the big-budget films form the industry’s backbone as most of the commerce is through these films. Its understood and acknowledged that ’small budget’ films are equally essential to the industry. Many of the classics of telugu cinema, where ’small’ when they released. Many of the biggest names in the industry today – technicians and actor got their ‘big break’ from this form of filmmaking. This article – is more about the economics of these films, rather than their creative importance. Until recently for many years small budget movies – the ones made under a budget of 2 crores have not achieved major success. While there were hits, none of them were ground-breaking.


The earlier scene: In 2000, Chitram by Teja was made on a shoe-string budget of about 50 lakh and went on to collect 8 crores are ‘net revenues’. Bettering that was 2001’s Nuvve Kavali which was made on a meager budget of less than 2 crores, went on to gross over 20 crores – making it one of the most profitable films if one had to calculate RoI (return on investment). 6 Teens was another low-budget sex comedy which had superhit music, youngsters with raging hormones, eye candy and went on to gross over 5 crores. This set off a trend of ‘youth movies’ in telugu films – where filmmakers constantly dished out movies with similar storylines hoping into the cash on the success of the above films. Some succeeded, while most failed and the point came when the audience was fed up of it and the genre was sidelined completely.


There were many small movies through 2002-2007 in telugu films that tasted success such as Show, Missamma, Aithe, Anand, A film by Arvind, Vennela and Pellaina Kotthalo. And then there were the mid-budget films such as Jayam, Pellam Vurelithe, Manasantha Nuvve, Itlu Sravani Subramanyam, Dongodu, Kabaddi Kabaddi, Nuvve Nuvve which steadily supplied the industry with hits. But none of them were ground-breaking or could repeat the magic of Nuvve Kavali.


The ‘Happy Days’ effect: But one film that totally changed the scenario – making everybody sit up and notice small budget films. It was Happy Days. Suddenly, small is in vogue. Everybody is making such films. Technically that movie was made for a little above 2 crores, but that can be excused. The film had an unknown cast, new music director, abused theme of campus romance and director who tasted only moderate success. But that film went on to become one of the biggest hits of 2007 making instant stars out of all the people associated with the film – the huge ensemble of actors right from the lead to the character artistes, the music director Mickey J Myers and director Shekar Kammula who is now seen as a brand name.


The movie got industry counterparts in Chennai and Bombay also talking about it. Its now being remade in tamil and Bollywood. But one feat only Happy Days can boast amongst all small movies is – its blockbuster run in the overseas boxoffice. It crossed the collections of super hits of A-list stars such as Chiranjeevi, Mahesh Babu and Pawan Kalyan! Yes, it did. Happy Days for sure isn’t the ‘father of small budget films’ but sure did revive people’s interests in making such films. And its success is used as a benchmark to measure the success of other films of this league. Unlike the last time luckily, the industry this time seems to have learnt its lesson. They’re not churning out Happy Days clones, but testing subjects from different genre such as thriller, horror, comedies and love stories, ofcourse.