Raees vs Kaabil: Why Roshans are daring to mess with King Khan?
“All that I have to say has already crossed your mind” — — Professor Moriarty
“Then possibly my answer has crossed yours” — Sherlock Holmes
A year and few weeks ago we witnessed an Elephant vs Bull clash ! where the numbers ultimately were in favor of the new bull in the town. But King Khan isn’t resting his sword and is again party to the clash of the year Raees vs Kaabil .
The Buildup: Revenge of King Khan Round 2
History in short, Kaabil has first taken the 26th Jan release date when out of sudden Raees moved onto ( in order to avoid Sultan ). After lots of twitter banter and some failed meetings, Rakesh Roshan moved Kaabil a day ahead to 25th but was soon followed by Raees . Now you must wonder why both films are releasing on the same day when there are quite a many good windows available in near future?.
Well, competitive dynamics or Game theory has an explanation.
Prelude: I know what You Know
If you found it interesting enough, I believe you would have seen The Beautiful mind, a biopic on Dr. John Nash who came up with an interesting addition to Game theory. In simple words, every decision making involving opponents is like a game where next move is not only dependent on your intelligence but also on your speculations about what competition knows and would do. Choices depend upon actions of others as well as beliefs of actions of others (under uncertainty).
It’s a complex loop where you know that he knows what you know while he may think the same….
It also depends on the your perception of the products both of you have. Here the decision makers are Red Chillies Entertainment and FilmKraft and their products are Raees and Kaabil respectively. Both the houses will try to act in their best interests given other’s strategy, maximizing their welfare (payoffs) and possibly attain Nash Equilibrium where in each player’s strategy is a best response to others’ strategies. This game is popularly referred to as Prisoner’s Dilemma.
While 26th is a Republic day holiday, releasing on it is a strong move beyond just superstition or Ego. Not only it gives access to a extended weekend but also the next big movie is 2 weeks later(Jolly LLB 2).
But now since both are releasing on the same day i.e. 25th, the screens are split (though still in favor of Raees ) and both the films will be eating into each other’s pie. The moves are explained by the payoff matrix where the possible outcomes are given in each block for the two films for the two release dates. The payoff as indicated in brackets are just for comparative analysis, an indication and should not be taken as box office numbers.
So should either of them have considered moving to 3rd?
So there are 4 possible states including the current state:
Both stayed at current release date: As you can see, the payoff i.e. the total earnings is highest for this window given it includes the 25th (as explained above). But the payoff is shared thus reducing individual share of the pie. Whichever films turns out to be better will enjoy more success though both houses believe that their film is better than the other’s. Even the loser will be making quite a good moolah since it will enjoy from the initial excitement (the high payoffs (40, 35)).
Raees Stayed on 25th while Kaabil moved: This is the case when RC doesn’t have higher faith in its product when compared with Kaabil. For instance, it believes that Raees will romp the 25th extended weekend and it is no point fighting the elephant. 3rd or some other date will be a safer bet as Raees may slow down ( for the lack of good content) giving Kaabil an open field. It can also demand better share of screens given Raees will be in week 2 of its release and much of its demand would have been satiated by then. But what if Kaabil turns out to be a better film?;liked more by the masses. Then Kaabil would be leaving money on table by releasing a week late since it should not be expected of movie going families to spend big money on two weekends back to back. But if it turns out to be a bad film, it will be completely run over by Raees as was Once upon a time in Mumbai 2 by Chennai Express.
Raees moved to 3rd while Kaabil stayed on 25th: It has the same explanation as above with the roles reversed. It is apparent that it is a losing proposition to move to 3rd Feb when the other is staying back on 25th and since as per dynamics of competition, both sides would have already evaluated the payoffs for all the cases.
Both moved to 3rd Feb:: This case will again be similar as the current conundrum and in this case both are losing money on the table. Alsothe upcoming week as Jolly LLB 2 and Akshay has been on a dream run in recent.
There are no big releases since past few weeks and the audience is hungry to go back to the theatres. It is wiser to go for this 25th/Jan than on 3rd Feb (as shown with higher payoffs).
Thus we can see why the films are releasing on the same day i.e. 25th. One may argue what’s in the release date and that a good content film shall prevail in the longer run. But today, most films are front loaded i.e. they recover most of the money in initial weekends (given the higher distribution share in favor of distributors).
On a personal note, I believe Kaabil should have moved to safer release date of Valentines Day weekend given it seems to be romance-revenge drama. Also it seems foolish to duel with SRK since Hrithik is coming from a disaster मोहेंजो डरो .However the current score is 1: 1. Let us hope we are treated with two amazing entertainers and both films do well at the box office.
Disclaimer: The author is an MBA student from a premier B school in India and self proclaimed pro Film trade analyst (:P). The opinion here is completely personal and does not intend to cause any conflict.
Originally published at www.mymovierack.com.