2024 was the year when Chidambaram’s Manjumal Boys became the biggest box office hit in the Malayalam film industry. |Photo courtesy: Special Arrangement
The Malayalam film industry is expected to earn a whopping Rs 650-700 crore in 2024, even as the films and filmmakers continue to garner critical acclaim from across the country and around the world. The Kerala Film Producers Association (KFPA) announced that it had suffered a loss.
Out of a total of 204 films released that year, including five re-releases of older films, only 26 qualified as superhits, hits, or average hits. The total investment was around Rs 1 billion, but these 26 films alone managed to make a total profit of Rs 300-350 million while the rest of the films sank without a trace, KFPA said. said in a release. Saturday.
For the second year in a row, the industry released more than 200 films. However, just like last year, losses piled up. This shows that while the numbers don’t matter, viewers are concerned about the quality of content and narrative, said a release issued by KFPA Secretary B. Rakesh.
OTT platform
“With no pre-release business avenues, films currently rely solely on theatrical collections.Movies that do not do well at the box office are not even bought on over-the-top (OTT) platforms.Many such films remain without participants in OTT. This leaves us with a situation where we have to carefully consider the cost of production and the significant savings,” Rakesh said.
He called for reasonable salary cuts for the actors, as appearance fees make up the majority of production costs. This will have to be achieved, unlike in the past, when repeated requests for actors’ performance fees to be reduced went unheeded. “When producers are universally incurring huge losses, actors have no choice but to take a lower salary,” Rakesh said.
That year, Chidambaram’s Manjumal Boys became the biggest box office hit in the Malayalam film industry. The film was also a big hit in Tamil Nadu. One of the most anticipated Malayalam films of recent years, Blessy’s Aadujeevitham, based on Benjamin’s best-selling novel of the same name, was also released this year. The film ‘Devadusan’, directed by Sibi Malayil and starring Mohanlal, recorded a decent turnout from theaters when it was re-released after 24 years.
issued – December 28, 2024 6:35 PM IST
