Wednesday 22 February 2017

The Butterfly Effect : Repeated Postponements of Singam 3




Singam 3 a.k.a. S3 a.k.a C3 a.k.a. SI 3 or whatever the title is, its the third part of the popular Singam franchise that started in May 2010 . Starring Suriya as Duraisingam / Narasimham, Singam was a Blockbuster, the first Non-Rajini/Kamal film to collect 30 crores share in Tamil Nadu . With close to 50 crores TN gross it stood next to Rajinikanth's Sivaji & Kamal Haasan's Dasavatharam . Not just restricting its success to Tamil Nadu, it also expanded Suriya's market in Andhra, Karnataka & Malaysia .

Suriya happened to do a sequel "SINGAM 2" in 2013 after his 7 am arivu & Maaattraan ended up as cost failure projects . With a moderate budget, Suriya himself distributed the film in TN through his new company "2D Entertainment". After a slow start in morning shows, it picked up fast later that day eventually becoming Suriya's highest grosser by the end of its run in all prime markets except Andhra.

SINGAM 2 :-
TN GROSS : 61 CRORES
WORLDWIDE GROSS : 122 CRORES 

SHARE : 68 CRORES
HIGHEST GROSSING TAMIL FILM OF 2013.

HOW SINGAM 3 BEGAN :-
               
Post the disastrous Masss (TN Share 15 crores), Suriya agreed to compensate financiers and other investors with Singam 3, originally he was supposed to play an Army Officer in a fresh script written by Hari. Since Masss closed with 50% to 60% losses, Suriya had to make his choices with extra care, looking back at Singam 2, it helped him get over 7 am arivu & Maattraan, Since all 4 of his films with Hari were successful, he trusted him and asked the director to begin scripting Singam 3. Though Hari was reluctant first, he changed his mind to help Suriya get over his rough patch. While Hari was scripting Singam 3, Suriya started work on Vikram K Kumar's 24, which despite becoming his 2nd highest worldwide grosser couldn't break even for the high costs involved.

Hence SINGAM 3 had only 2 motives :-
1) Compensate financiers for Masss
2) Revive Suriya's fallen market in Tamil Nadu .

RELEASE :-    
With the prologue done, lets get to the main topic of discussion . SINGAM 3 release was originally scheduled for October 7th 2017, after shooting got delayed they had to move to Diwali which again the makers choose to let go for Karthi's Kaashmora. Since those dates were never publicly announced, lets assume December 16th as the first official release date.

Barely few days before release, Studio Green informed distributors that SINGAM 3 has been postponed to avoid clash with Ram Charan's Dhruva . After announcing December 23rd as the new release date, they postponed again citing demonitisation.

Both these postponements never made sense, 3 Telugu films released on Pongal 2017. Chiranjeevi's Khaidi 150, NBK's Gautami Putra Satakarni & Sharwa's Shatamanam Bhavati, all 3 of these films were hits . With Nani's Nenu Local deciding to opt out of Dec 23rd release, there was no competition for SINGAM 3 other then Dhruva, considering the fact that there are more theaters in AP/TG, its very comfortable for both films to become hits . And for the demonitisation complaint, Aamir Khan's Dangal grossed more than 500 crores in India, demonitisation didn't affect the film one bit . Hence both the reasons given for the postponements aren't valid reasons, they are just excuses, a good producer who has confidence on his film won't have such fears.


  
Making things worse, when SINGAM 3 was moved to December 23rd. Jayam Ravi's Bogan was postponed to January 26th. Post which SINGAM 3 had its release date postponed often as If it was intending to clash with BOGAN. Whenever Bogan release date was moved to a later date, SINGAM 3 was also postponed to the same date. In the end BOGAN was preponed by a week to February 2nd to allow SINGAM 3 to have solo wide release on February 9th.

February is a busy month for movie buffs since they'll be preparing for academic year end Board/Semester exams . So except for weekends, ticket sales will be very low or sometimes nil . Both SINGAM 3 & BOGAN have left distributors with 30% to 40% loss . 


OTHER VICTIMS :- 



   
  

Two other films Vijay Sethupathi - KV Anand's KAVAN & Lawrence's Sivalingaa were planning January 26th Release . These two had to move their release dates to March 31st/ April 14th because of SINGAM 3 postponements . When KAVAN & SIVALINGA choose a later date, there would be other films that were planning release on the same day, If they face theater availability issues, they'll also have to postpone . Hence SINGAM 3 has a long term effect on the future of Tamil film industry, Suriya's own Thaanaa Serndha Koottam (April/May/July) & Suriya 36 Director Selvaraghavan's Nenjam Marappathillai (February 24th) have also been affected because of SINGAM 3 postponement.


With more than 50 days passed in 2017, Kollywood is yet to get its first hit film and the repeated postponements have messed up the release dates of upcoming Tamil films . Distributors in few areas have decided not to buy films on MG basis hereafter .




No comments:

Post a Comment