Large number of flops: Kerala Film chamber calls meeting today

KOCHI: Malayalam movie industry is staring at yet another crisis after the pandemic as over 90% of the films released in theatres recorded huge losses. Kerala Film Chamber said of the 77 Malayalam movies that were released in theatres this year, only seven managed to get profits.
When films are failing to attract an audience and the number of new productions are declining, Kerala Film Chamber of Commerce will convene a meeting of all film organizations in Kochi on Friday to discuss the issue.
The representatives of Association of Malayalam Movie Artists, MACTA, Fefka, producers association, Feuok, distributors association, film exhibitors’ federation will attend the meeting.
“As many 45 new film productions registered with the film chamber last month. Now, this number has decreased to 12. We should tide over this crisis together. We should find the real reason behind this,” said G Suresh Kumar, a member.
Kumar said the steep increase in the remuneration of artists is a key reason for the increase in production costs. “We don’t believe that the present crisis is a continuation of the crisis during the pandemic. Now, many good films are a flop at the box office as there is no audience,” he said.
Recently, Kerala Film Producers’ Association had asked actors to reduce their remunerations. Actor Prithviraj then responded by saying that producers have the freedom to say no to ‘expensive’ actors. “Expensive stars should understand that the survival of the movie industry is essential to their career,” Kumar added.
‘Dear Friend’ , a recent movie starring Tovino Thomas, was a big failure in theatres. When it was released on an OTT platform last week, it became a hit among the audience. Meanwhile many other language films, such as ‘Pushpa’, ‘RRR’ and ‘Vikram’ were a success in theatres here.
M Renjith of Kerala Film Producers’ Association said the arguments in support of the popularity of movies released on OTT has no statistical support and baseless campaigns for OTT will only destroy the industry.