I hope readers can recognize who is this, still I'll give a short recap
Mr. Tirupur Subramaniam is a veteran distributor. Legends like Superstar Rajinikanth used to get career advise from him. He served as the head of Coimbatore theaters association till the release of Mersal.
After Sivaji The Boss, return of investment became low and distributors were more susceptible to huge losses than before. Hence Subramaniam took a long break from distribution and concentrated on theaters association and managing his own multiplex Sri Sakthi Cinemas in Tirupur.
As the head of theaters association, he has peacefully settled numerous issues in Kollywood that includes bailing out films of actors like Vijay, Ajith, Kamal Haasan, Simbu, Sivakarthikeyan etc.
The most stressful situation that he faced came only recently. That is Local Body Entertainment Tax. Like said earlier, LBET not only eats into a film's revenue but also makes tickets unaffordable to middle class people.
VISHAL VS TIRUPUR SUBRAMANIAM:-
The biggest difference between Vishal & Subramaniam is, Vishal keeps only actors and producers well being in mind. But Tirupur Subramaniam is someone who cares for the film industry as a whole.
Subramaniam firmly believes in 2 things :-
1) A film is a genuine success only If its profitable to all producers, distributors and theaters.
2) Consumers(Audience) are equally important as the products (Producer).
In media, we've seen Subramaniam only as a short tempered person who sometimes exaggerates a film's loss when he gets emotional. But unbeknownst to many, he is one of those who are struggling to keep together an industry which lacks unity.
Going by the 2nd thing Subramaniam believes, film theatrical business is healthy as long as standard number of people visit theaters. There used to be a time where theaters used to be the most preferred place to seek entertainment, but those days are long gone for reasons well known.
Till a while back, theaters were dependent on big budget films for good collections and small to medium budget hits for good profits. Since a big budget film is costly, the huge collection a theater earns is sometimes hardly enough to recover the price they payed to sign the film. But in a medium or small budget film, its mostly just plain terms, say like 60:40 or 50:50, so If such films click with the audience, theaters get to see good profits.
There is a huge scale of misogyny in Vishal's side regarding Multiplexes and Non-Tamil films. They don't like Multiplexes strictly following 50:50 share terms for majority of films. What's more stupid is thinking theaters are giving Non-Tamil films more preference.
Truth is theaters screen films that audience want to see, its as simple as that. When Tamil films don't do well, they'll replace few slots with English and Other Language films. Another benefit theaters get in Non-Tamil films is buzz will be more than a Word-Of-Mouth dependent Straight Tamil film, more people will come, theaters get 50:50 terms in place of the average 60:40 terms they get for a Tamil film.
Vishal is someone who'll never understand things like this because all he cares about is generating more money so to monopolize the business further he smartly asked Tamil Nadu Government to keep high tax slabs for Non-Tamil films. This indirectly gives him more power to dictate to theaters what movies they should screen and what they shouldn't. Irony is he forgot the fact that even Tamil films will also be effected by LBET (8%).
The basic problem with LBET is it increases ticket prices and decreases revenue, thus theaters will be earning lesser revenue than before for good films and very low footfalls even for average to decent film. As Tirupur Subramaniam was helpless in this situation, he felt guilty and handed over his resignation letter to theaters association. They requested him to stay, Subramaniam knew members won't let him resign so he broke the recently introduced wide release rule in Coimbatore area for Mersal .
After Baahubali 2's release, a new rule was brought into effect to restrict wide release of films. This was done to help medium and low budget films to get theaters easier. For example, a film can't release in more than 6 screens in City and in a double screen theater, a film should be playing in only one of the screens. Subramaniam broke this rule intentionally in Mersal. As a result, he was removed from theaters association and Rajamannar of Kandhasamy Arts Center took over as the new Head of Coimbatore Theaters Association.
K. Rajamannar is a powerful distributor in Coimbatore area. Members were happy to have him as the new head of theaters association because Rajamannar also runs theaters in Coimbatore so he knows their pain. If someone else had become the new head, then distributors would have made theaters suffer with terms like 80:20
In TN, outside the 3C's, theaters had to sign Mersal with terms like 80:20 & 85:15. Same would have happened to theaters in Coimbatore If not for people like him.
FILM FINANCING :-
Speaking of misconceptions, its not just restricted to people thinking about exhibitors shower in currency, there is more. I'm talking about producers and distributors, they do business in crores but aren't necessarily rich.
Among today's production companies only few can fund films entirely on their own. LYCA Productions, Super Good Films, Vijaya Productions, Sun Pictures, Red Giant Movies etc. to name a few.
Again they were only few, Majority of the Producers borrow money from financiers to produce films . Financiers lend money only If producers can assure they can pay it back with interest.
Assure in the sense,
1) By pledging their jewelry or properties
2) If they have a leading actor's dates, financiers will lend money keeping in mind the maximum pre-release business the film can do.
Per month Interest for these loans vary from 3% to 20%. Once the shooting is completed producer sells area-wise theatrical and non theatrical rights for a profit and repays their loan with interest. That's the reason a producer sometimes suffers losses for a delayed release even If the film did reasonable biz.
In case of non payment of loans :-
Financier can stop a film's release till his loan is payed back with interest.
A Financier regularly checks out the progress and asks the producer to settle his dues. If a producer isn't in a situation to repay his debts, he uses excuses like "I'll come by myself and settle it personally". Producer uses this excuse time and time again with blind faith that he can repay his loans through overflows (Getting overflows is extremely rare these days).
Does this excuse really work ?
Not always. That is after a certain point, the financier sees through the lies of the producer and becomes silent like a tiger and strikes when the time is right.
Ever wondered why sometimes morning shows of a film gets cancelled?
That is the time where the financier strikes. Producer will be facing minute to minute pressure from fans, distributors and theaters so he'll have to find a way to settle his dues immediately.
How can he do that ?
If he doesn't want to lose properties he mortgaged, producer looks for an easy way out. He can go immediately to get a bankable actor's callsheet and use that to get money from another financier . This money is used to settle dues with the current financier. With help from mediators this process is carried out deliberately.
Many distributors also get loans like this and struggle to pay back their debts. Irony is If a producer wants peace, he can't be share this with anyone. If financiers know the producer is in debt, they won't lend money, sometimes this also makes bankable actors back away from working with him.
This goes on like forever till a point where the producer doesn't have an actor's callsheet. All the financiers he owes money to will come knocking his door.
Or there is a 3rd way out ?
May be the things earlier I said about financiers will look familiar to you. But there is also a 3rd way. You may not have heard about it. That they can make a deal with the financier .
It goes like this,
this producer in question will be tasked to luring aspiring film producers into the business, they will bring these aspiring producers to the financier they now work for. The financier will lend these newbies funds to produce films.
For every task a debt ridden producer completes, he will be paid. Producer will be allowed to keep half of it for his own expenses while the rest will be adjusted to the debt he owes . He'll keep on doing this till his dues are settled completely .
There was a distributor who owed money to a financier and he had to pay off his dues like this. He is walking free today because of Baahubali 2. I'm not allowed to disclose his name but he is based on Ramanathapuram, his first distribution Padayapa was a success but all his later films (Mostly small ones) bombed . He had to work for the financier to clear half of his debts. Praying to god, he risked some of his savings on Baahubali 2. The film got him very good profits. With that he settled his dues completely . He has left film business and is currently working in a private company peacefully.
Unfortunately not everyone gets happy endings like this,
Some producers end their life like Ashok Kumar. The late producer faced back to back loss in Thaarai Thappattai, Kidaari & Balle Velaya Theva. His mental health took a toll while clearing Kodi Veeran finances, that led to his suicide.
As someone who aspired to make it big in the film industry, I'm deeply saddened by its unfortunate state :( .
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