Film production is one area where the word Negative means positive and riches, wealth. In the pre-digital era, films were shot on film negatives which, when processed in a film laboratory, helped make positives that were then screened in cinema halls.

There are various phases through which the film negative passed in the process of its evolution. But, those are technical aspects not relevant to this article. The world of celluloid was dominated by Kodak, the pioneer of the medium. Most producers used Kodak for best results. Later, there was some competition from Fuji film.

India had no facility to produce cine film and all the stock was imported from the USA (Kodak) and Japan (Fuji). Now, that was a costly affair as the film’s import attracted customs duty. The other problem with negative film was the wear and tear. As film budgets increased, the market too expanded. The number of prints for a theatrical release went on increasing and, hence, for safety sake as well as to avoid wear and tear, the original negatives were

duplicated.

All this trouble was worth it if the film became a hit. Then the film negative became an invaluable asset. For one, if a film became a hit, there was a demand for more cinema prints as more cinemas screens were added to the chain with each passing week. But, mainly, these negatives became a regular source of revenue for the producer. A film was first given out to various distributors spread over Indian circuits, as they were described in the trade, for a period of 10 years. Once the ten year period was over, the films became due for re-issue rights. These rights were usually given for three years or five depending on the cost consideration.

For most regular producers, filmmaking was their only business and source of substance. Over the years, these producers owned the negatives of any number of films. That was the era of lakhs and the reissue rights, 16mm rights and so on kept them going.

But, then came Doordarshan and the Video era. An additional source of income opened up for producers. Doordarshan started telecasting feature films as a Sunday evening attraction. DD reeked of corruption and no film got selected without a middleman and a bagful of bribes. But, at least, the producer was getting extra money from a totally unexpected source. Imagine, a Government agency paying you for something!

But, DD was just a trailor of good things to come. Those petty DD hand-outs, after deducting huge cuts for the middle-men, were just the beginning. Real change started in the 1990s. A private TV channel, Zee, made its debut in India. Before that there was no TV industry in India nor were there any content providers. The channels which launched in India had no clue of the market. They had no sense of budgets for creating programmes of their own and their pockets did not think beyond a few thousand rupees per episode.

The newly launched TV channels took to acquiring rights of films. And that is when the filmmakers struck gold! TV channel bosses knew they could sustain and make their presence felt only with film content until as such time as they came up with their own original content.

The more the TV channels, the better the deal was for the filmmaker. A lot of filmmakers owned what was called a library; 10, 25, 30 film negatives. These were old banners like Shakti Samanta, F C Mehra, Pramod Chakravorty, G P Sippy, N N Sippy, N C Sippy, R K Films, B R Chopra. In fact, there were a number of such producers who were sitting on a number of film negatives available for television and satellite rights which were worth crores but they did not have a clue about this.

These were the filmmakers the TV channels were interested in. The producers who could sell them a library, a lot in one go and not a film or two. Suddenly, the worth of the negatives that the producers were sitting on which had once fetched returns in thousand or lakhs in some cases, had suddenly turned out to be worth crores. Film industry folk are wary of talking money or disclosing exact figures but a couple of examples should give you a pretty good idea.

A producer who was never in a hurry to sell his film rights all these years, unlike most others who had lined up to encash, recently sold his lot of 12 films for a sum of Rs 65 crore to a video company; the company retained the video rights and further sold the satellite rights to a TV channel for over Rs 100 crore. These films were recently screened on Zee as a retrospect of this maker. The rights of the ex-censor chief’s films came up for renewal of satellite rights, the earlier rights given for 10 years having expired. Another video dealer acquired them for about Rs  15 crore and resold them for a reported price of Rs  Rs 20 crore to a channel.

It is easy to imagine why the wards of first generation producers, who made anything between 10 to 30 films, are not into film production now. They are sitting on the negatives of the films made by their parents which have now turned out to be a veritable goldmine.

@ The Box Office

With no film worth commenting upon or challenging the status of older releases, Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal Again gets a bonus extra week to add to its tally while Aamir Khan’s Secret Superstar also gets a much needed extra weekend.

The two new releases, Jia Aur Jia and Rukh, both proved to be damp squibs at the box office. Coming out of the blue without much fanfare or promotion, they failed to find viewers.

*Diwali week proved to be lucrative for Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal Again. Having taken a bumper opening weekend of Rs  86.1 crore, the film ends its first week with an impressive Rs 135.3 crore.

Since post Diwali films were rejected by audiences, Golmal Again gets a further boost as the film carries on to cash in on its popularity. Already having done bumper Diwali week business, Golmaal Again continues its steady run in to its second week which should end at over Rs 46 crore.

*Secret Superstar, which grabbed a major share of screens during the Diwali week, sustained itself out of depriving Golmaal Again of more screens. More screens did not mean adding to the film’s potential as the film, which had collected Rs 30.5 crore for its first weekend during Diwali, added just about another Rs 10 crore to take its first week total to Rs 40.75 crore. The film is expected to add another Rs 12 crore in the second week.

*Judwaa 2 adds about Rs 90 lakh in its fourth week to take its four week total to Rs 133.9 crore.

*Newton adds about Rs 20 lakh in its fifth week taking its five week tally to Rs 18.95 crore.

The remaining nine weeks of 2017 promise to have a decent line-up of new releases which may help end the otherwise insignificant year on a positive note. Some of the films set to release are: Ittefaq,  Qarib Qarib Singlle, Shaadi Mei Zaroor Aana, Tumhari Sulu, Padmavati, Fukrey Returns and Tiger Zinda Hai.