The article “Bollywood Vs. Hollywood – the Complete Breakdown” by Woke discusses that there is no chance for the Indian movie conglomerate to take over Hollywood or even gain a greater impact in the international movie business (Woke, 2007) by comparing facts and figures. In my eyes the author is being a little too hasty in some points. So let us take a closer look – there is of course no right and wrong, so it is up to you to decide “which side” you are on.
To begin with the amount of productions and the audience, Woke gives us the numbers of Bollywood movies produced annually: “more than 1000” and “worldwide audience of 3 billion” and for Hollywood “500 films per year” and “a worldwide viewership of 2.6 billion” (2007). Therefore, Bollywood wins this competition. However, Woke claims that the amount of viewers and movies produced annually does not indicate anyone’s superiority because “Bollywood made a revenue of $1.75 Billion in 2006(estimated to rise to $3.4 Billion in 2010) which is only half the revenue of what one Hollywood studio, Walt Disney made in 2006 – and that is saying a lot” (Woke, 2007). Does it really? In my opinion, Woke does not consider the different financial situations of the different audiences. While you pay $7.89 US dollar in 2010 for going to the cinema (National Association of Theatre Owners, 2010), you only pay around 20cent in India (Perry, 2004). Of course therefore Bollywood’s revenue is different – but just thinking about the current development in Asia and that “Indians are getting wealthier” (Overdorf, 2007) maybe the ticket prices will “catch up” (Overdorf, 2007). Then the revenues would definitely look different! Of course this is just a hypothetical assumption, but I think that you cannot say that Bollywood makes less and therefore it is not as successful as Hollywood.
The next point would be the market: internally and externally. Woke correctly says that “while Hollywood’s market inside the US has almost saturated, India’s 500 million population under the age of 20 will ensure that the market inside India will grow exponentially in the coming years” (Woke, 2007). So the internal market is already promising, especially now that “the younger generation is spending more on entertainment” (Overdorf, 2007) in India. And what about the external market? First of all, “around 15 million Indian expatriates [live] in different parts of the world [and] account for over 65% of Bollywood’s earnings. An estimated $800 is spent by NRI’s [Non-Resident-Indians] in Indian movies and music. US (2 million Indian expats), UK (1.5 million), South Africa (1 million of Africa’s 2 million Indian population) are major markets for Bollywood” (Woke, 2007). So Bollywood has a great variety of markets, distributing their products and spreading more and more across the planet. These immense future opportunities of constantly growing markets should make the author more careful when discussing Hollywood’s superiority despite its “saturated market” (Woke, 2007).
Furthermore, Bollywood and Hollywood are slowly entering mutual contracts and mutual productions: “Aishwarya Rai and Colin Firth star in this year's [2007] ‘The Last Legion’. In 2008, Rai and Michael Douglas will be seen in ‘Racing the Monsoon’. Sony Pictures Release of India is collaborating with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s production house, SLB Films” according to Sarita Sarvate, 2007. And other deals will follow after several success stories. So I would like to suggest being careful and not underestimating Bollywood’s way to new markets outside of India, because in my eyes Bollywood is developing right now on many different levels although it might yet be invisible to our eyes.
In the next part Woke compares the costs: “The average cost of producing, marketing and distributing a Hollywood film is more than US$60 million […]. At the same time Shekhar Kapur’s ‘Paani’ which is tipped to be the costliest film ever to be made in Bollywood will cost $20 million and the average cost of a big movie is around $ 5 Million. 50% of the movies produced in Bollywood are never released and on an average more than 95% of those released results in losses” (Woke, 2007). Well, I have to admit that he does have a point. But again, this was an issue of cultural differences. Ronnie Screwvala, owner of UTV Software Communications, comments "Nobody thought of [movie-making] as a profit-and-loss [business]. "They thought of it as a cash-flow [business]. So if a producer-director made a movie and it lost $5 million, but he got advances to make his next movie of $5 million, [in his mind] he'd broken even" (Overdorf, 2007). Again I am convinced that this rather chaotic non-profitable system is going to change soon when businessmen like Ronnie Screwvala and Anil Ambani keep changing the Indian movie industry, even if the financial resources are smaller than in Hollywood.
The last point I would like to discuss, clearly disagreeing with the author, is again about money. Woke states that Hollywood movies earn money with their “franchise-formula” which means more profits from “TV networks, magazines, home-videos etc.” (Woke, 2007) and most probably all kinds of merchandising items like t-shirts, bed sheets, coffee cups… the list seems to be endless. In his opinion, this is not yet working in Bollywood. Sure? Have you ever heard of a man called Shah Rukh Khan? He is an Indian actor, sometimes even called “the world’s biggest movie star” (Perry, 2004). “At 38, Khan has reached a level of hero worship attained by few actors in history. Every film he graces—no matter how bad—is a surefire smash, every product he endorses is a best seller, and there are so many shrines to him across India that he could launch a new religion” (Perry, 2004).
Therefore, I would put it differently and say that India just has a different kind of merchandising until now. Actors and actresses “reached almost deity status” according to Andrew Grant (2009), and thinking of the Bollywood movies I have seen so far – I guess around 25 to 30 that were shown on German TV – only one movie did not have Shah Rukh Khan as main actor. Surprisingly I did not like that movie – there was just something missing… I guess that is the same for the people in India and all other markets of Bollywood. It is about the main actors and actresses. So consequently there is a great potential for merchandising and franchising, just that the majority of people in India probably do not have the financial means so far. However, again I have to refer to people such as Anil Ambani and Ronnie Screwvala. With them on board it is only a question of time when Bollywood achieves the position to conquer the merchandising markets as well.
To conclude, I really enjoyed reading the article by Woke, although I do not agree with him in several points and aspects. Therefore, I have to say that I see things differently and believe in Bollywood’s power to become equal to Hollywood, even for Western standards. Most of the problems mentioned in Woke’s article are already in progress of being solved. Now the world just has to wait for the future developments.
from Bloomberg Newsweek, 02.12.2002
List of References:
Bloomberg Businessweek. (2002, Decemer 02). Hollywood vs Bollywood. Businessweek.com. Retrieved April 25, 2011 from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_48/b3810019.htm.
Grant, A. (2009). Megastars - Bollywood Style - A Star System Even More Powerful Than Hollywood's. Worldfilm.About.com. Retrieved April 25, 2011 from http://worldfilm.about.com/od/bollywood/a/bollywoodmegastars.htm.
National Association of Theatre Owners. (2010). Average U.S. Ticket Prices. Retrieved May 04, 2011 from http://www.natoonline.org/statisticstickets.htm.
Overdorf, J. (2007, November 30). “Hooray for Bollywood. Newsweek.com. Retrieved April 25, 2011 from http://www.newsweek.com/2007/11/30/hooray-for-bollywood.html.
Perry, A. (2004, October 04). Shah Rukh Khan - Bollywood's Brightest Star. Time.com. Retrieved April 29, 2011 from http://www.time.com/time/asia/2004/heroes/hshah_rukh_khan.html.
Verrier, R. (2011, January 28). Movie ticket prices reach new milestone. Latimes.com. Retrieved April 28, 2011 from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/01/movie-ticket-prices-reach-new-milestone.html.
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