Shah Rukh Khan will release 2,000 prints of Om Shanti Om

“Hi, I hope I am not disturbing you?” said a voice, at least a billion people the world over can recognise instantly. Shahrukh Khan called EconomicTimes (ET) last evening, certainly not to discuss the latest on the Sensex.

The Don would rather discuss Red Chillies Productions’ new movie Om Shanti Om (OSO), slated to release this Diwali. After inking the alleged highest deal for a Hindi movie at around Rs 75 crore (inclusive of worldwide rights, but excluding music and satellite rights), OSO is set for another record, the highest number of prints any Indian movie has ever released.

SRK will release 2,000 prints of the movie. “Yes, that is the attempt,” says SRK. That would make the 800-plus prints of Rajinikanth’s superhit Sivaji The Boss look commonplace. “A chunk of these (prints) will be digital installations. There is definitely a huge market out there. And post the success of Chak De, the interest level is even higher. Germany for one, even sent down a huge contingent of scribes while we were shooting and Poland, Australia, South Africa, Malaysia all non-traditional markets too have seen a demand for more prints,” says SRK.

SRK, as reported by ET in July, was said to have sold the entire rights of OSO excepting music to Eros International for Rs 75 crore while the music is said to have sold to T-Series for Rs 8-9 core. While refusing to confirm the deal size, SRK, however, clarifies that the satellite rights are not part of the deal with Eros.

Keeping with his commitment to Star TV and his long-term relationship with the channel, the satellite rights in all likelihood will to go to Star. But the competition among channels in buying rights of a big movie, especially an SRK-starrer, is intense.

While the usual practice is to buy the rights for a decade, SRK sold his Main Hoon Naa to Star for a five-year period. And OSO rights could be even shorter. “I believe in underselling my film. So less money for less time which means that in the case of OSO, it would be sold for a period of 3-5 years at the most, not longer,” says Mr Khan.

According to industry insiders, the prices for satellite rights for big films swing wildly between Rs 8 crore to Rs 20 crore, with the outer figure being quoted for an SRK movie. Insiders in the TV industry, however, say the outer figure is ridiculous.

Any movie, big or small gets its maximum TRP in its first airing and even with a movie like OSO, they estimate that with advertisers the maximum moolah any channel can rake in during this first airing is Rs 4-5 crore. So even over five years, it does not make sense to pay anything more than Rs 10 crore as the maximum for a movie, they point out.

Eros International, meanwhile, says its investment is safe. This in spite the fact that Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya is releasing on the same day, November 9. “For one, we are securing our content pipeline, secondly, the distribution business is very sophisticated and we feel that the market can take two films,” says Eros COO Jyoti Deshpande.

She, however, concedes that if both were Eros films, then she would not have had them clashing at the box office. Ms Deshpande’s confidence also comes from the international market power that SRK holds. “He has markets which no other star has, from Poland to Australia to Germany of course,” says Ms Deshpande who says the split for the release will be 70:30 domestic to international.

While refusing to give the exact money he has sold OSO for, Khan says it is an expensive film. In Khan’s lexicon, anything which is Rs 12 crore is cheap, anything between Rs 20-26 is medium and anything above Rs 27 is expensive.

Nandini Raghavendra, TimesNewsNetwork