Every single year Bollywood and Hollywood witness one major success story. Each year there has been a small film that has succeeded over the usual big starcast masala films. For every ‘Houseful’ there is ‘LSD’ in the same year; for every ‘Joddha Akbar’ there is a ‘DEV D’. This phenomenon is also true for Hollywood: for every ‘2012’ there has been a ‘Hangover’. Pick up any year and the above is true…

So what drives a small cast film? Obviously, there’s something that the small film producers do that catches the audience’s attention. And this is precisely the business we are in.

Whether it is a great story (Page 3), or great dialogues and screen play (Hangover), or sometimes really interesting publicity (like in Love Sex aur Dhoka - LSD), or an actor who people really want to see (like Imran Khan in ‘Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na’ or Hrithik Roshan in ‘Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai’ when they first released). KNPH released in opposition to Aamir Khan’s ‘Mela’ and Shahrukh’s ‘Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani’ (yes, Hrithik’s film clicked against these two superstar’s BIG films). In India a film with great music has always had a better chance of clicking – again ‘Kaho Na Pyaar Hai’ / ‘Maine Pyaar Kiya’, ‘QSQT’ (launched Aamir Khan), ‘Love Story’ (launched Kumar Gaurav), ‘Betaab’ (launched Sunny Deol) and ‘Bewafa Sanam’ (a small T-series film starring Kishan Kumar).

These are what we call the USP of a film or an answer to the BIG question: “What drives people to the theatre?” Often, people who smell this beforehand, end up making BIG bucks. Whether it’s a distributor, a cinema owner, a music company, a satellite channel, a broker or even a canteen owner who has a stall outside the cinema hall, fortunes have been made by individuals backing the above named films (it goes without saying that they were all priced extremely low).

One company which ruled the hearts of Indian families was Rajshri Productions – they have a very special place in the Bollywood film industry, having produced more than 50 films till date and most of them have been small star cast family genre films with a record of 90% success. Be it the black and white ‘Dosti’ or ‘Geet Gaata Chal’, ‘Nadiya Ke Paar’, ‘Tarana’, ‘Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se, ‘Saawan Ko Aane Do’, ‘Maine Pyaar Kiya’ (these are all made with newcomers – yes, Salman Khan was a newcomer in MPK); these films are amongst the biggest hits of their time – each one is more than a golden jubilee. ‘Nadiya Ke Paar’ (later remade as ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’) celebrated 125 weeks in almost 30 cinemas and MPK celebrated 100 weeks.

Percept Pictures stint in Bollywood
Percept Pictures started off with the similar ideology of bringing different kinds of Cinema to the Indian audience. Percept took Bollywood by surprise with ‘Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi’ which had extraordinary music and is popular even today. ‘Makdee’ was next, which launched Vishal Bharadwaj as a director (yes, Vishal who made ‘Omkara’ and ‘Kaminey’ is a Percept discovery). Then came ‘Phir Milenge’, which dealt with the sensitive subject of HIV and had a formidable starcast in Salman Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, and Shilpa Shetty, directed by Revathy. But the biggest point that many don’t know is that ‘Phir Milenge’ was made at a cost of ONLY Rs 2.75 crores. No one in Bollywood could imagine this could be done taking such a BIG cast. The idea here was doing the right film at the right price and at the right time, sending out an important message to the society and at the same time making a film which won HUGE credibility and accolades for Percept and for all involved.

Percept Pictures followed up the success of ‘Phir Milenge’ with Madhur Bhandarkar’s ‘Page 3’, which was one of the biggest hits of 2005 winning 2 National Awards for Best Director and Best Script. This film established Percept Pictures as the most innovative film company with a great vision, great marketing, great concepts and great pricing. If we talk about commercial viability, all the partners in the value chain multiplied their investments.

The next release was ‘Hanuman’ – which was a low resolution, less than DVD quality software. It was the vision of Percept’s Management who picked up this software and made it into what the world calls a ‘Massive Hit’… It took the entire Bollywood by storm. ‘Hanuman’ is a case study in every Bollywood marketing discussion and course.

‘Hanuman’ consolidated the fact that Percept Pictures was a genuine success story and a force to reckon with in Bollywood. In fact, Percept Pictures emerged as one of the biggest players in India and was rated by Zoom Television as the 4th largest studio in India. Many more successes followed, namely ‘Corporate’, ‘Malamaal Weekly’, ‘Traffic Signal’, ‘Jannat’, etc.

The journey is long but Percept Pictures is untiring, innovating and constantly keeping its presence felt in this exciting industry. Percept Pictures is striving to continue to make exciting cinema that goes beyond big stars and big budgets. Percept Pictures recently won the National Award for Best Film for ‘Kanchivaram’. That’s reason enough for many more to come! More about Bollywood success stories and Percept Pictures in the next chapter.