Discovery Mosti
Bollywood: How much money is needed to make a movie in Bollywood? By movie, I mean big screen movies?
As one of the largest cinema hubs in the world, the Indian film industry is renowned for its glitz, vibrancy and drama. The city of Mumbai, previously called Bombay, is especially relevant in this context as the birthplace and namesake of “Bollywood”, the multi-million-dollar film industry in India. And while Hindi language Bollywood cinema rules the roost when it comes to net worth, there are many other film hubs across the country differentiated by regional languages including Tollywood (Telugu films), Marathi cinema, Bhojpuri cinema and Bengali cinema to name a just few.
Collectively, India has been on a consistent growth curve in terms of the number of feature films produced and distributed in a year. In 2018 alone, there were over 1,800 digital feature films released across the country. In comparison, the United States produced just over 500 films that year. One of the main reasons for such a high number of films produced in India every year is the large market readily available. Indian movie-goers throng cinema halls, be it the modernized multiplexes or the old-school single screen theaters. In fact, most Indian movie buffs prefer watching films in the theatre as opposed to other options such as streaming. Although the numbers have started to dwindle down over the years, India still houses over 6,600 single screen theatres. This also makes the Indian cinema lover an ideal target for advertisers. In-cinema advertisements generated over eleven billion rupees in revenue as of 2019.
Hindi continues to be the most popular language of choice for Indian cinephiles. The 2016 film “Dangal” starring Amir Khan was the highest grossing Bollywood movie of all time, breaking the record previously held by “PK” starring the same actor. Dangal collected close to 340 million USD in the box office. Regional cinemas have also seen a surge in the box office revenues off-late. Kannada, Marathi, Malyalam, Tamil and Telugu films are increasingly appreciated by a pan-India audience. In fact, regional cinema made up nearly 30 percent of all box office content for 2019.
The year 2019 belonged to Akshay Kumar, as he became the first actor to see his films’ box office collection cross the 10 billion-rupee benchmark in a year. In fact, Kumar had such a dream run in 2019, that he earned a whopping 65 million dollars, putting him amongst the top five best paid actors across the globe
Bollywood: How much money is needed to make a movie in Bollywood? By movie, I mean big screen movies?
As one of the largest cinema hubs in the world, the Indian film industry is renowned for its glitz, vibrancy and drama. The city of Mumbai, previously called Bombay, is especially relevant in this context as the birthplace and namesake of “Bollywood”, the multi-million-dollar film industry in India. And while Hindi language Bollywood cinema rules the roost when it comes to net worth, there are many other film hubs across the country differentiated by regional languages including Tollywood (Telugu films), Marathi cinema, Bhojpuri cinema and Bengali cinema to name a just few.
Collectively, India has been on a consistent growth curve in terms of the number of feature films produced and distributed in a year. In 2018 alone, there were over 1,800 digital feature films released across the country. In comparison, the United States produced just over 500 films that year. One of the main reasons for such a high number of films produced in India every year is the large market readily available. Indian movie-goers throng cinema halls, be it the modernized multiplexes or the old-school single screen theaters. In fact, most Indian movie buffs prefer watching films in the theatre as opposed to other options such as streaming. Although the numbers have started to dwindle down over the years, India still houses over 6,600 single screen theatres. This also makes the Indian cinema lover an ideal target for advertisers. In-cinema advertisements generated over eleven billion rupees in revenue as of 2019.
Hindi continues to be the most popular language of choice for Indian cinephiles. The 2016 film “Dangal” starring Amir Khan was the highest grossing Bollywood movie of all time, breaking the record previously held by “PK” starring the same actor. Dangal collected close to 340 million USD in the box office. Regional cinemas have also seen a surge in the box office revenues off-late. Kannada, Marathi, Malyalam, Tamil and Telugu films are increasingly appreciated by a pan-India audience. In fact, regional cinema made up nearly 30 percent of all box office content for 2019.
The year 2019 belonged to Akshay Kumar, as he became the first actor to see his films’ box office collection cross the 10 billion-rupee benchmark in a year. In fact, Kumar had such a dream run in 2019, that he earned a whopping 65 million dollars, putting him amongst the top five best paid actors across the globe
Let me give you a simple formula. Each day of Production of Movie Shot on a high end digital Cameras (RED APEX, ARRI ALEXA etc.) with technical/support crew of 35-40 people, rigs, cranes, drones, dollies,trollies etc. should cost you anywhere from Rs. 100,000 to Rs.250,000 per day. Now multiply this by no. of days of shooting, you will get your production cost.
Post-Production cost depends on lots of variable including Animation, VFX etc. but for a 120 minute film with minimum Digital Intervention a minimum of 350 -400 hrs. of editing/post studio time can be fairly estimated in your budget. Depending on the kind of edit/post suite you use, this price could range from anywhere between Rs.1500 - Rs. 3500 per hour.
Of course, all this will depend on how accurately is the script timecoded. The more homework you do with precision in your pre-production stage, the less time you will require both on the Production floor, & in the Post-Production stages thereby, saving you on vital resources aka MONEY.
Then if you are marketing & distributing it yourself, you will need to pump in as much money you spent on Production, into marketing your end product. Sometimes even more.
So assuming you shot a 120 film over 35 days that took 350 hrs. of post, your Production Cost would be:
Pre-Production: Rs. 25,000 per month x 6 months = 150,000
Production Cost: Rs. 175,000/day x 35 days = Rs. 61,25,000
Post-Production: Rs. 2500/hr. x 350 hrs. = Rs. 8,75,000
Total COST: Rs 71,50,000
The above budget is strictly for a movie shot in single Domestic location eg. Studio/ House etc. in Mumbai, or any big Production Center in India, and does not account for expenses towards erecting elaborate sets, Art direction & costumes.
It also excludes expenses for back-ground artistes, Music Composer including back ground score, Talent, Top Technical Crew Fess including Screenwriter, Special License & permits, or over the top Post-Production requirements (CG, Animation etc.).
Also, shooting with FILM CAMERA (Arri 435 or equivalent) will considerably inflate your production cost as the cost of Negatives is exorbitant and, its post-production time consuming.