Ananth Naag

Happy Republic Day to India on the 60th Republic day of India!

Do you know how much money can a good Hindi film make with just box office collections?? Well you have the answer in the heading of this post — 200 Crores Plus Rupees. That’s almost 2 rupees plus for every Indian!

I was just amazed with an article in Business Standard which came up with the highest box office grossings till date for Hindi films. The topper is of course the latest Amir Khan movie – 3 Idiots! It grossed a whopping 240 Crore Rupees (2.4 Billion Rupees) in the first 10 days of the movie release itself the highest of any Bollywood (Hindi) movies..And this is just the box office collections, think of all the audio and video rights and the other merchandising and stuff..well don’t really know how much this film is going to make totally!

*** Latest Update ’3 Idiots’ makes 315 Crores in 18-19 Days and is on its way to reach 400 Crore Rupees!

The next film to come closer was Ghajini (again an Amir Khan starrer.. and a remake of a Tamil film) making an overall 225 Crore Rupees! (Well you’ll see a lot more exclamation marks in this post!!!)

On the other side in Hollywood, the top grosser and a record $1.4 Billion being grossed by Avatar from James Cameroon in the first few days or weeks!

Looking at these mind boggling figures, it doesn’t seem to be a bad venture producing or distributing a good film. Now, thats a nice statement, just that there’s been no real formula to create that “Good” film.

But, on a different note, I was just thinking why all this money needs to be made by just a few individuals? Why can’t we have a way for common people to invest in films? Production and distribution..an IPO for film production and distribution? Ahh!! nice idea isn’t it? To an extent, nowadays a good number of movies are being produced by production houses in India as well and since these are owned by public companies, we can, in a roun-about way invest in films. But, I would probably look at a good direct way for people to invest in good films!

The second part of this thought process is that, what if..just what if ..Amir Khan and his team (who have already made a lot of money through many of his other films) say that their entire earnings from this film would go towards a social cause “or” towards a public initiative! I know..I know..a terribly optimistic idea..and I know you’d have a question.. would you do if you were Amir? I would, I guess! Maybe, nobody gave Amir this thought..Why so much of money made from common man cannot ultimately benefit the common man and go into Swiss bank lockers or something like that!

The other thought I had was,  can’t we create a co-operative to produce or distribute some good films? The worst probable difficulty with all this is what in case of losses?? People would have lost more number of crores of rupees with Flops?! But, my point is why not sign Amir khan who has given such massive hits..maybe he’ll be a lot more sensitive with responsibility with Public money.. make him do a film for benefit of a co-operative or IPO public investing in his films.

Anyways, I know this is far fetched, but the whole point which comes to my mind, is that when collectively we can generate so much money for a film, why not for bigger causes? If the administration and governments cannot do or take up a lot of public welfare initiatives, can we m=not as citizens mobilize and generate the money and get our own things done, than wait for these lazy and self-fulfilling politicians? Maybe worth a thought..The obvious question then would be why should we do so, when the most corrupt politicians are stashing away Thousands of Crores of Rupees – Millions or Billions of Dollars in Swiss bank and other non-disclosing bank accounts in Europe! ( and a few other Asian countries – Hong Kong, Macau..). Well, corruption in public offices is such a sinister thing will need a few blog posts from me to talk about…

Anyways, I am overall happy that our films can make such big monies in India and around the world and developing the movies industry and people depending on it..Enjoy the weekend and watch a good film

This is an interesting email forward, read and enjoy!

A young and pretty lady posted this on a popular forum:

Title: What should I do to marry a rich guy?

I’m going to be honest of what I’m going to say here. I’m 25 this year. I’m very pretty, have style and good taste. I wish to marry a guy with $500k annual salary or above. You might say that I’m greedy, but an annual salary of $1M is considered only as middle class in New York . My requirement is not high. Is there anyone in this forum who has an income of $500k annual salary? Are you all married? I wanted to ask: what should I do to marry rich persons like you? Among those I’ve dated, the richest is $250k annual income, and it seems that this is my upper limit. If someone is going to move into high cost residential area on the west of New York City Garden ( ? ) , $250k annual income is not enough.

I’m here humbly to ask a few questions:

1) Where do most rich bachelors hang out? (Please list down the names and addresses of bars, restaurant, gym)

2) Which age group should I target?

3) Why most wives of the riches is only average-looking? I’ve met a few girls who doesn’t have looks and are not interesting, but they are able to marry rich guys

4) How do you decide who can be your wife, and who can only be your girlfriend? (my target now is to get married) 

Ms. Pretty

Awesome reply!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Ms. Pretty,

I have read your post with great interest. Guess there are lots of girls out there who have similar questions like yours. Please allow me to analyse your situation as a professional investor. My annual income is more than $500k, which meets your requirement, so I hope everyone believes that I’m not wasting time here. From the standpoint of a business person, it is a bad decision to marry you.. The answer is very simple, so let me explain.

Put the details aside, what you’re trying to do is an exchange of ‘beauty’ and ‘money’: Person A provides beauty, and Person B pays for it, fair and square. However, there’s a deadly problem here, your beauty will fade, but my money will not be gone without any good reason. The fact is, my income might increase from year to year, but you can’t be prettier year after year. Hence from the viewpoint of economics, I am an appreciation asset, and you are a depreciation asset. It’s not just normal depreciation, but exponential depreciation. If that is your only asset, your value will be much worried 10 years later.

By the terms we use in Wall Street, every trading has a position, dating with you is also a ‘trading position’. If the trade value dropped we will sell it and it is not a good idea to keep it for long term – same goes with the marriage that you wanted. It might be cruel to say this, but in order to make a wiser decision any assets with great depreciation value will be sold or ‘leased’. Anyone with over $500k annual income is not a fool; we would only date you, but will not marry you. I would advice that you forget looking for any clues to marry a rich guy. And by the way, you could make yourself to become a rich person with $500k annual income. This has better chance than finding a rich fool..

Hope this reply helps. If you are interested in ‘leasing’ services, do contact me….

Signed,
CEO
Top Wall St. firm

Here it is in India..as per IST ..A very New Year 2010.

A new decade to start and hopefully starting off with a much better year than the last one..

Wish you all across the world, a very Happy New Year, a prosperous one and one you may remember later for much good happenings..

Enjoy the day…