Bollywood star Aamir Khan wants Rs 100 crore for his new film 3 Idiots, but no distributor seems willing to pay him such a huge amount. Last year, Aamir sold the distribution rights of his hit film Ghajini for Rs93 crore, but this time, distributors are shying away from investing such a large sum because they are not sure about the box-office fate of Aamir’s latest production.
Producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra has reportedly signed a minimum guarantee deal worth Rs34 crore for the new film, in collaboration with BIG Pictures which is the movie distribution arm of the Anil Ambani group. According to sources, Aamir will also get a share of the box-office revenues.
Last year, Ghajini’s producers Allu Aravind and Madhu Varma sold the domestic distribution rights of the film to the Mumbai-based Indian Film Co (IFC) for Rs53 crore. According to sources, they sold the overseas distribution, domestic video and satellite rights for another Rs40 crore.
Besides Aamir, 3 Idiots, releasing on 25th December, stars R Madhavan and Sharman Joshi. The music is composed by Shantanu Moitra and Swanand Kirkire has penned the lyrics. However, according to industry sources, the music of 3 Idiots has not caught on and so the film’s fate at the box-office hinges entirely on Aamir Khan’s charisma and performance.
Big distributors like Yash Raj Films, Network 18, Adlabs Films and PVR are not interested in buying films outright from other distributors. Instead, they prefer to have a ‘minimum–guarantee’ deal with producers. In such deals, the distributor has to pay a minimum guaranteed amount to the producer; so the distributor has to bear the losses if the film fails.
On the other hand, in an ‘advance–payment’ deal, the distributor pays a certain amount for acquiring the distribution rights for the movie. If the movie fails, the producer has to pay for the losses incurred by the distributor. This type of deal came into vogue after the strike by multiplex operators. – Pallabika Ganguly[email protected]
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