Kaante, the last big release of the year, has come out trumps if the first week's box-office collections are anything to go by.
The film's estimated gross domestic box-office ticket sales for the first week itself have touched a figure of about Rs 16.7 crore (Rs 167 million), according to the films producer Pritish Nandy, chairman, Pritish Nandy Communications.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg since it does not include overseas collections which are estimated to be of a similar scale although firm figures are not available due to the cumbersome process involved in collation of figures across 20 countries.
The overseas rights have been sold for about Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million) to the Los Angeles-based Film Club, promoted by Raju Sharad Patel.
Produced at an estimated cost of around Rs 35 crore (Rs 350 million), Kaante seems to have made money not just for the producers who had in effect covered most of their costs way before its release but also for its distributors and the exhibitors who have had a terrible year to say the least.
"On a conservative basis, we hope to cover all costs by the end of the 11th or 12th day, beyond which all receipts by way of the overflow should go towards the bottomline," said Nandy.
The film has already secured around Rs 12 crore (Rs 120 million) by way of minimum guarantee from the domestic market and other Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million) by way of overseas theatrical rights.
The music of the film was sold for an amount of Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) as minimum guarantee. The company has also been negotiating with television channels for the sale of satellite rights which according to Nandy could fetch the company a minimum of Rs 8 crore (Rs 80 million).
"However, we would not sell the satellite rights in a hurry since we want to realise the full potential of the theatrical sales. It would also be unfair to distributors if we sold the satellite rights soon since that could act as a dampener to ticket sales with viewers preferring to wait for the television broadcast," said Nandy.
Shyam Shroff, director, Shringar Films Pvt Ltd, distributors for the film in Mumbai, says, "The first week was extremely good with almost 100 per cent collections everywhere. We hope to recover all our costs towards minimum guarantee in the first week while in the second week we should recover the costs of print and publicity. We expect a return of at least 25 per cent on our costs which is a good return these days."
With no immediate threat of any major releases in forthcoming weeks, the distributors and exhibitors, not to mention the producer, could be raking in the moolah for some more time which could possibly make Kaante one of the big successes story of Bollywood in 2002.
