There have been two Vijay hits within the Tamil movie business this 12 months. In a single, GOAT, he’s 50 years outdated. Within the different, he’s 30.
If you happen to’re questioning if that is some cutting-edge AI de-ageing, let me cease you. The latter was the re-release of Ghilli, the 2004 superhit that cemented his place on the prime of the Kollywood pecking order. If media stories are something to go by, the re-released model grossed within the extra of ₹50 crore on the field workplace, matching the then-record collections from its authentic launch.
A nonetheless from Ghilli
Ghilli is just not an remoted incident. If you happen to paid any consideration to the schedule in your neighbourhood theatres, you’d have seen a pattern of outdated movies being re-released. From decades-old classics to more moderen cult movies, there’s a variety of titles discovering their manner again to the theatres.
All of it started with the Amitabh Bachchan retrospective in October 2022. Or did it start with the re-release of Mahesh Babu’s 2006 hit Pokiri in August 2022? It’s really a bit tough to pinpoint the exact origin of this phenomenon, however there are some things we will say with some certainty.
For one, it occurred post-lockdown. Whereas there have been re-releases previously, these had been sporadic one-offs. It was when a couple of re-releases occurred in 2022 and 2023, in numerous markets, that the pattern grew legs. Folks began to understand there was a viable enterprise mannequin right here.
Pulling within the crowds
2024 is the 12 months that the re-release enterprise achieved important mass. “If we’ve got to say when the momentum picked up, it was with the movies that launched this 12 months, beginning with Rockstar and Laila Majnu,” says Niharika Bijli, lead strategist of multiplex chain PVR INOX. “It opened our eyes to the truth that even a movie that’s obtainable on OTT is ready to pull in extraordinary numbers to the theatre.”
Niharika Bijli
| Photograph Credit score:
Publicity Visuals
Earlier than we look at their motivations, it’s value understanding that broadly there are two sorts of re-releases. On the one hand, there are more moderen movies like Tumbbad (2018), which have both been shot on digital or have a pristine 4K digital print obtainable to be deployed for re-release. With these, there are not any main technical prices or hurdles.
The far tougher kind is films akin to Manichitrathazhu (1993), which had been initially shot and launched on movie, and must be ‘remastered’ right into a 4K digital print. This generally is a massively time consuming and concerned course of that begins with getting maintain of the unique digital camera damaging. “If a movie is maintained nicely, then the second you scan it, you’re able to remaster it,” says Abhishek Prasad, chief expertise officer of Prasad Company in Chennai, the pre-eminent facility for movie restoration in India. “A few of the movies which are badly maintained develop into extraordinarily brittle, or are caught layer to layer, or have the chemical bleeding out.”
Abhishek Prasad
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular association
Movie evaluation at Prasad Company
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular association
India is traditionally unhealthy at archiving and sustaining movies. Many producers used to care little or no about storing their outdated movie reels correctly as soon as they stopped incomes any cash. Some can be left for storage with the movie labs that supplied storage services. After which COVID hit. “At the moment, many labs shut down. Negatives that had been taken from the vault for scanning, merely melted,” says Unaise Adivadu, operations head at Matinee Now, the corporate that oversaw the remaster and re-release of Manichitrathazhu.
The problem of Manichitrathazhu
Whereas trying to revive the Mohanlal-Shobana blockbuster, Adivadu and his staff couldn’t even find a usable digital camera damaging, and needed to fall again on restoring from a constructive print. That is an inferior start line. Even in its authentic kind, a constructive print is a considerably degraded model of the unique digital camera damaging.
Unaise Adivadu
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular association
Upon getting the movie, the primary job is to wash it, utilizing a mixture of guide and mechanised processes. It’s then scanned at a really excessive decision of as much as 14K to get an infinite file measuring a number of terabytes, which is then digitally labored on to additional restore defects, together with the results of mould, fungus, perforation tears and the like. Lastly, the movie is color graded to copy the unique look to the extent potential, and it’s prepared for launch.
Manichitrathazhu additionally had one other problem — its soundtrack was recorded in mono, a single channel of sound, whereas present theatrical releases are distributed with multi-channel Dolby Atmos soundtracks. So the parents at Matinee Now took the dialogues and songs from the unique mono, however re-recorded a lot of the rating and sound results to reach at a multi-channel combine. Restoration like this may subsequently be an costly proposition. “We’ve completed titles for ₹4-₹5 lakh, and others for as much as ₹1 crore,” says Prasad. “It simply is determined by the effort and time that has to enter the restoration.”
A nonetheless from Manichitrathazhu
Manichitrathazhu’s re-release went on to be a terrific success. And this has been the case for a lot of the big-ticket re-releases within the current previous. As producers, distributors and exhibitors realise that there’s a comparatively lower-cost asset that’s obtainable for them to deploy in theatres, everybody needs in on the motion. “Timing is essential. Re-releases typically carry out greatest throughout leaner durations when there are fewer new releases. We work with distributors to make sure that re-releases don’t overlap with main blockbusters” says PVR INOX’s Bijli.
‘A assured good time’
However what’s pushing the crowds again into the theatres to see these movies? The oft-cited reply is nostalgia, however is there actually, as an example, ₹50 crore value of nostalgia in Tamil Nadu? There are nearly undoubtedly different components at play. “Again within the Nineteen Nineties or 2000s, you’d go to a theatre not figuring out how a movie was going to be,” says movie critic Tanul Thakur. “It was two hours of pristine immersion. These days, with the OTT tradition, folks wish to management the expertise, versus permitting the expertise to regulate us. We’re cautious of disappointment.”
Tanul Thakur
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular association
That is undoubtedly one of many nice pluses of watching a re-release: a assured good time. “You aren’t discovering. You’re reassuring your self,” he says. There may be additionally the truth that with many of those basic films, the youthful viewers has by no means had the communal expertise of watching them within the corridor.
“Many generations haven’t seen Dilip Kumar or Dev Anand movies within the theatre,” says Shivendra Dungarpur, founder-director of the Movie Heritage Basis, which is chargeable for restoring and re-releasing a number of basic movies from throughout the nation. “I screened Mahal (1949) in July and 1,500 folks turned up on a wet day. Why? They wished to see Ashok Kumar, they wished that theatrical expertise.”
Bijli remembers going to see K3G “and folks within the corridor had been saying the dialogues aloud”. This type of communal reliving of a movie’s highlights, additional testified to by movies of followers dancing within the aisles for the songs from Ghilli, is one thing that you simply can not fairly replicate with a brand new movie.
Maybe one other consideration is that re-releases are stepping in the place new releases are falling quick. At the very least for Bollywood and the Tamil business, the final 12 months was brutal, with few hits to talk of. “If Manjummel Boys, a Malayalam movie, is among the largest hits in Tamil Nadu this 12 months, then they’re actually on shaky floor” says Aditya Shrikrishna, a Chennai-based movie critic. “There’s a full homogeneity of movies which are being made, and this has pushed a selected type of viewers away from the theatre. As a result of we don’t see as many rom-coms, or as many softer [lighter] movies.”
Aditya Shrikrishna
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular association
There may be additionally the straightforward bodily immersion of watching a movie in superb 4K decision on an enormous display. This holds attraction even when the title is obtainable at no cost on YouTube. On the finish of the day, the re-release phenomenon is a basic instance of a state of affairs the place everybody comes out a winner.
The author and photographer relies in Chennai.
Printed – October 11, 2024 11:11 am IST
