In 2008, No Country for Old Men, a film directed by the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, won the Best Picture Academy Award. The Academy Awards recognise excellence in films released during the previous year. The film, a dark and absorbing tale about a fortune, a busted drug deal, and a hitman, won three other Oscars: Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. With that kind of pedigree, it should have done well at the Indian box office.
Instead, it earned a mere Rs 20 lakh. The biggest Hollywood grosser in India that year was Spider-Man 3, which earned Rs 68 crore . A couple of years later, The Hurt Locker, a film about a bomb disposal unit in Iraq, won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. The film, helmed by Kathryn Bigelow, also met the same fate at the Indian box office, earning just Rs 2 crore. That year, the biggest Hollywood flick in India was Avatar, which grossed Rs 110 crore. It remains the biggest Hollywood grosser of all time in India.
Avatar did win three Oscars, but all lesser ones, involving visual effects and cinematography. Those features, particularly the special effects, played a big role in its box office appeal.
With the exception of Avatar and Titanic, both directed by James Cameron, films that have won prestigious Academy Awards have not been very successful in India. Even Slumdog Millionaire , which had an all-Indian cast and a plot based entirely in India, did only moderately well, with box office takings of Rs 20 crore. The film did better outside India - it had worldwide gross earnings of $377 million.
"Awards don't matter at all at the Indian box office," says Komal Nahta, a film trade analyst. "The Oscar festivals conducted by multiplexes are a marketing gimmick. They want to stay in news. They know that they won't be able to get enough footfalls," she adds.
Kamal Gianchandani, President of PVR Pictures Ltd, the film production and distribution arm of the PVR Group, points at the lack of a commercial quotient in these films. "Movies such as the Harry Potter series or 2012 are highly commercial and cannot be compared to Oscar nominated movies. They are more visual-oriented," he says. 2012 was dubbed in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi and is estimated to have grossed around Rs 90 crore.
"Be it a local award or an international award, it doesn't matter. There is curiosity but the reach is limited. The majority of people look for entertainment," says Taran Adarsh, a film critic and trade analyst. "I would say that unless these (Oscar-winning) films have the required dramatic tadka for an Indian audience or have a setting closer home, with characters who can be identified, they will find the going tough in India," adds Farooqui.
Titanic, a film about the huge passenger ship that sank in April 1912 after crashing into an iceberg, had a lot of that "macula". The film, released in 1997, had a romantic plot weaved in, giving it a commercial appeal. It remains the highest grossing Best Picture winner in India, with gross collections of around Rs 52 crore.
