Prime Focus, the company behind the visual effects (VFX) of the film Brahmastra, expects India’s contribution to revenue to increase due to an uptick in demand for VFX in local films.
Indian projects contribute 5-10 percent of the Mumbai-based company’s business. Prime Focus is betting on its new project Ramayana, which is expected to go on the floors next year and is touted as India’s most expensive film with a budget of Rs 750 crore.
“Over the next 3-5 years, we see that changing because Ramayana will be a big creation that is slated to happen. It can go as high as 20 percent,” Namit Malhotra, promoter of Prime Focus, told Moneycontrol. “The market has opened and it will encourage more makers to focus on VFX. KGF 2 and RRR are showing the world what Indian audiences want.”
Malhotra said Ramayana will be the biggest Indian project for the company.
The studio, which has worked on films including RRR, Gangubai Kathiawadi, and 83, is getting more enquiries from Indian filmmakers for visual effects after the September 9 release of Brahmastra.
“Filmmakers will see VFX as a critical component of filmmaking,” said Malhotra. “Now, audiences have transitioned from old school filmmaking to noticing the technology and tools that are being used in movies.”Big-screen spectacle
Brahmastra, starring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, has been criticised for being high on VFX and low on content and yet it is a big-screen spectacle that is attracting audiences.
Some film experts have said big-screen spectacles can bring back footfalls in cinema halls to pre-pandemic levels. Audience levels were 10 percent lower than pre-COVID levels in the first quarter of FY23 even after the release of star-studded films including Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha, Ram Charan and Jr NTR-starrer RRR, and Akshay Kumar's Raksha Bandhan.
“It is the larger-than-life experience in cinemas that audiences need on the big screen and the pandemic has accelerated that situation, especially as I am being fed high quality content on OTTs (over-the-top platforms). We had a lot of films throughout the year which had top stars but that is not what is calling people back to cinemas,” Malhotra said.
He added that audience tastes are changing in India and that will drive demand for visual effects in Indian films.
“Actors are paid handsomely because they drive audiences. Movies are made for audiences and if they crave to see their superstar, then you pay the superstar. But now they crave for experiences like Brahmastra, then you’ve got to allocate money for visual effects,” he said.
Brahmastra, with 4,500 VFX shots, has become the Indian film with the highest number of visual effects, surpassing the 2,400 VFX shots in Avengers: Endgame.
VFX investments
While Malhotra did not disclose the amount spent on the visual effects in Brahmastra, he said a significant portion of the film’s budget went into VFX.
“The budget allocation was massive for VFX in Brahmastra and more than what is usually spent for VFX in Indian films,” he said.
It is estimated that 36 percent of the Rs 410 crore budget for Brahmastra, or about Rs 150 crore, was spent on VFX.
Over the past 7-8 years, spending has increased on visual effects for Indian films, especially big screen spectacles like the Baahubali franchise and RRR which are estimated to have spent 18-20 percent of their budgets on VFX.
Previously, VFX investments were in the range of 5-8 percent and they are expected to increase to 30-35 percent in the coming years.
Actor John Abraham said during the trailer launch of Attack, which released a week after RRR on April 1, that the makers of the film had invested more on VFX than on actors. He pointed out that usually an actor’s fee is 50 percent of a film’s budget but for Attack, 30 percent of the budget was for visual effects.
At par with Hollywood
Malhotra said that with films like Brahmastra, the aim is to bring the capability that Hollywood filmmakers have to India. This was also what led him to become one of the producers of the film.
“In India, there always has been the excuse in the past for high concept films that we don’t have enough budget, expertise or technology. But director Ayan Mukerji and we were clear that we are not doing this as an Indian film so we can make excuses. It is an Indian film which is at par with any global film but is still not made with the budget of a Hollywood film,” said Malhotra.
Banking on both Indian and Hollywood projects, the company’s revenue increased to Rs 3,386 crore in FY22 from Rs 2,536 crore in FY21.
The Prime Focus promoter said decent growth is expected in FY23 as global demand has strengthened.