Overseas Trouble: No Buyers For Big Telugu Films?

Many mammoth Telugu films lined up for the next couple of years are facing an unexpected issue from the overseas market, if reports are to be believed. They are struggling to find traditional distributors in the North American market, an arena where Telugu films used to make quick millions. Though it used to be like Overseas buyers used to buy Telugu films for simple prices and then make huge there, most of the times, right now the asking price is said to be worrying them.

In fact, Overseas Distributors in the US are now treating anything above ₹50 crore as a risky deal, because a film has to collect nearly $6 million ‘share’ to recover that investment. But the current quotes for big films are going close to ₹100 crore or even higher, as per the reports. If you look at the lineup, films like Allu Arjun’s Raaka, Prabhas’ Kalki 2, Rajamouli-Mahesh’s Varanasi, Jr NTR–Prashanth Neel’s Dragon, and Prabhas-Vanga’s Spirit fall into this high-price bracket. Except for Peddi, which was sold for ₹40 crores, rest of these movies haven’t been committed to any distributor so far. In the past, overseas deals were a major recovery zone for Telugu films. But things are changing now as distributors are playing it safe, and don’t want to release movies for marginal profits.

As a result, producers are now planning to release films independently. Instead of selling rights, they are using US distribution networks on a commission basis. That’s a good move, because there will be no involvement of upfront investment for distributors, and the risk of giving back money if a film fails, from the producer’s side. However, some distributors who had become accustomed to making huge money from overseas releases were upset by this trend, as commissions are nowhere near outright profits.