Analyzing the success of Endhiran – Robot
Endhiran – Robot, starring the greatest superstar of Indian Cinema – Rajini Kanth, and directed by Shankar has been the most expensive Indian film ever made till date.
It has truly carved a name for itself in the history of Indian cinema by breaking several records and being a trend setter. A lot of hard work and careful planning has gone into the making and marketing of the movie. Am trying to list down a few of those points here in this post. 
Many would know that the movie has consumed a massive budget – close to 160+ crores to make it. To begin with this movie was being produced by Ayngaran which subsequently sold out the rights to Sun Pictures. This was a defining moment for the movie’s fate, because not only did this bring in the money power, but it also brought in the tremendous muscle that Sun and its network wield in the southern state (TamilNadu).
Its quite well known that a movie’s success is predominantly determined by the hype and buzz. Sun left no stone unturned to ensure this. There was a massive mega-event music launch show in Malaysia which was telecast on the Sun Network. That by itself raised the expectation levels of Rajini’s fans worldwide.
Following which the music of the movie was launched on iTunes and it recorded the maximum downloads for an Indian movie while fetching revenues legally.
The next part of the marketing economics was the distribution and launch planning. About 2250 prints were prepared for world-wide distribution.
In entire Tamilnadu, there were just 2 other movies that were running since the launch of Endhiran and just a couple of shows. That meant that, whichever theatre or whichever show you walked into, there was Endhiran playing. This was also marketed heavily in the adjoining southern states of Karnataka and Andhra. The hindi versions were also simultaneously released for other parts of India.
From a pure math perspective at the rate of 4 shows for 2150 prints, with an average audience base of 150, and average ticket price of 200, this alone works out to 25crores per day! Now if we take out 100 of those 2250 prints as worldwide releases and calculate the returns on them using currency conversions, they work out to much more.
The movie has been running full for more than 10 days in a row and the theatres are still buzzing. So easily some 350-400 crores would be made in just about 10-15 days of running.
Comedian Vivek said during the music launch that this movie would be like 10 Diwalis put together – he even called this RoboWali and why not? Its been a true fire cracker.
One of the other key aspects that the makers got right was the protection of digital rights. Usually this tends to be an achilles heel as the piracy eats into the plans and movies get distributed very easily on filesharing sites.
Endhiran’s overseas rights were owned by a professional entity – FICUS entertainment (www.ficusmovies.com). And for the overall digital rights, they are protected by the Anti Piracy Group. APG has said clearly that it would pursue legal action as per DMCA rules against individuals/websites who distributes pirated links/sharing files/torrent files of Endhiran / Robot / Robo.
Interestingly though links appeared for some parts of the movie or songs, those were detected and broken very quickly. What was even heartening was the Rajini’s fans themselves were posting messages on social networks referring to such links and asking the site owners to remove them. Social responsbility!!!
Truly this has been a landmark movie in every way – made, managed and marketed very professionally to perfection. As some one said, the earlier movie of Rajini, Sivaji was BOSS – but this one Endhiran is MASS !!! Go Endhiran, Go Rajini!!!
