Coronavirus shatters silver screen dreams for Bollywood

That was the sombre assessment of about a dozen top producers, distributors and actors from Bollywood, the movie industry in India’s commercial capital of Mumbai, during a video conference this week, a participant said.

“Making movies has always been a gamble, and now some of us can pack up for the next year,” said a film-maker responsible for many successful action movies, on condition of anonymity. “We will have to beg people to come to cinema halls.”

Such dim prospects, even after the lockdown is lifted, threaten the box-office takings that make up 60% of industry earnings, spurring producers to say big-budget films and extravagant shoots in foreign locations will be shelved.

“Films will have a tough time,” said Jehil Thakkar, a partner at accounting firm Deloitte India. “Even after they lift the lockdown, I’d expect the psyche of a lot of people would be to avoid crowded places.” About 9,500 theatres are shut, and business at multiplexes and single-screen cinemas is unlikely to bounce back for weeks or even months, as infection fears linger and discretionary spending plunges.

“Theatres may not open before mid-June on a pan-India level and normal occupancy may not come back until August,” Karan Taurani, an analyst with investment firm Elara Capital, said in a note, adding they may have to slash prices to lure viewers.

Industry figures show India makes 1,200 films in a typical year, but Taurani sees bigbudget movies getting pushed into the next fiscal year, as production houses battle a liquidity crunch amid falling box-office revenues.

For example, the release of Bollywood’s first attempt at a multi-hero action franchise, film-maker Rohit Shetty’s Sooryavanshi, has been postponed indefinitely from a late March schedule.

“It is likely that even after theatres re-open, only smaller films will be released, so that producers get a sense of how many people are coming to them,”

Shailesh Kapoor, head of agency Ormax, which tracks Bollywood films, said. Shares in India’s

two largest multiplex operators, PVR and INOX Leisure, have plunged more than 40% from all-time highs in late February. Brokerage Emkay also slashed its rating on both to “hold” from “buy”, saying they would suffer declines of more than 50% in visitor numbers, ticket sales, advertising revenue and food and beverage sales in fiscal 2020-21.

Top-grossing actors and directors can tap savings to ride out the downturn, but it will hit tens of thousands of ordinary workers who get paid by the project, from movie extras to dancers, stagehands and technicians.

“Things are pretty bad right now for us, but worse for those who work on our films on a day-to-day basis,” said Vinod Bhanushali, the head of marketing for production house T-Series, which has 12 films stalled by the crisis.