“Little India,” the largest Indian publication in the US, recently ran an article entitled “Showtime!” which discussed at length the forces at work when it comes to exporting Bollywood and operating a desi theatre. According to the article, which ran in the September ‘05 issue, Bollywood has had one of its best years yet, despite Hollywood’s year-long slump.

The times indeed are a-changing. In the state-of-the-art four screen Loews Theater in Times Square, sometimes as many as three are screening Hindi films! In fact, 75 percent of the business in the theater, according to Vijay Shah, comes from Bollywood films.

Shah, a theater owner, attributes the success of Bollywood in America partly to the initiative of desi entrepreneurs.

“We were the first people to put all-Indian movies in mainstream theaters,” says Shah. “They never used to give any screens to Indian people. We were the first ones, because we bought our own multiplex cinemas, the Cine Plaza 13, from Regal Cinemas.” Through Regal the Shahs developed contacts with other chains, started attending trade shows and building relationships within the industry.

Still, it hasn’t been easy. Desi theatres are subject to many unique difficulties that main stream theatres just don’t have to worry about. Because 80-90% of Bollywood’s audience is made up of people of Indian origin, desi theatres are forced to compete with cricket season. During Ramadan and other major religious fixtures there is little demand for Indian cinema, even if Bollywood were making a lot of movies during religious festivals- which they’re not. If you factor in all the regular problems that all theatres must contend with (if there are fewer hits one year, or if some big stars make fewer movies one year), its no wonder why desi theatres are having trouble finding a foot hold.

Then there is the matter of piracy. Hollywood is competing with piracy all over the world, and so is Bollywood. However, Bollywood gets it far worse. Best estimates say that Bollywood as a whole suffers a loss of one BILLION dollars a year as a direct result of piracy. In India and America desis often buy pirated DVDs without a second thought, only seeing major Hollywood releases in the theatres (since they are harder to find pirated).

One of the major culprits of this piracy is Pakistan’s Bollywood ban. Because Indian films are illegal there, Pakistanis are forced to purchase pirated DVDs if they want to see Hindi productions. This has accelerated the piracy of Indian films to such a rate that you can always find pirated DVDs the day a movie is released in theatres, and over 15 million DVDs are exported out of Pakistan every month to countries like the UK and America.

All of this puts desi theatre owners at a big disadvantage, making it even harder to compete with mainstream theatres like Loews. Many of them lose more business because they are unprofessional.

They do not have computerized ticket systems and sell “raffle tickets,” collecting half the ticket as clients enter. “The theatres don’t have air conditioning, the shows don’t start on time, the restrooms are really dumps… There are so many theatres, which are not run professionally and so don’t draw a regular family or social crowd.”

The theatres that are most successful are the ones that have shown strong innovation. Shah’s Cine Plaza 13 offers special ergonomic chairs. One Californian chain is billed as “North America’s First Multicultural Entertainment Megaplex” and shows movies from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines. The megaplex boasts 3,000 seats and 5,000 parking spots. Another theatre, called ImaginAsian is “More than just a movie theater… a place where the community can get together.” It offers first run movies from every Asian country, live performances from Asian-American comedians, and authentic restaurants where moviegoers can enjoy Indian Chai and Chinese shrimp wafers, among other treats.

But all this comes at a price to its owners: A huge investment and a lot of hard work. Hopefully, the trend will continue to grow. And who knows, maybe Hollywood might learn a thing or two from places like ImaginAsian. That would certainly get Americans back in the theatres!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 26th, 2005 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Bollywood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.