Star Wars has made more monies on licensing and merchandising than Box office! Today, more licensees are shying away from movie licensing. They say, shorter life cycles of the movie business as the prime reason. Hollywood films have created a science out of extending life cycles: Theatrical launch followed by home video, merchandising, TV syndication etc.
I don’t believe that Bollywood is far behind on mirroring Hollywood trends. However, there has been no real effort at building a licensing & merchandising program. Part of the reason is to go with a plan that has worked historically i.e Box office, home video, satellite rights and usual marketing touch points. why fix whats not broken? The second is that its not seen as a serious tool of a marketeers arsenal and so, there are no integrations at a script level keeping licensing in mind. We (in our last avatars) worked on three movies Drona, Bhoothnath and Love 2050. In the case of Drona, a key product that was launched did not feature in the final cut of the movie while we had invested in launching the product. A small slip! Drona and Bhoothnath sank like the titanic and so all the products including the Pink teddy bear was stuck with the licensees as dead stock. Bhoothnath at least did not lose money for our licensee.
However, all of these were half hearted efforts and afterthoughts.
This brings me to Ra-One! I am agnostic on how it will fare at the Box office but full marks to SRK for making a genuine effort at creating a licensing, merchandising and gaming program. Check the store. One may criticize quality of products, the movie content etc. but dont forget, Krish had an opportunity and they did not do it!
SRK has used his existing endorsement clients to push the Ra-one message. He has created, games, comics, products, Mcdonalds Happy meal giveaways. Will the movie tank and with it all the products? This is unpredictable but this is the first genuine effort at building a superhero licensing program. For this, much respect!