The Tamil film industry is the filmmaking industry of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is based in the Kodambakkam district of Chennai, India where several Tamil language feature films are largely produced. It is also colloquially known as Kollywood.
Distribution and popularity
Tamil films are known to be the most popular Indian films, along with Bollywood films, due to their large distribution internationally to the numerous Tamil diasporal regions. They have one of the widest overseas distribution along with Telugu and Hindi films. They have enjoyed consistent popularity among Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. Tamil films have recently become popular in Japan (Rajinikanth's Muthu, for example, screened for a record period), South Africa, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Sivaji: The Boss had been touted as a record-breaking film for its high-budget, large opening, and reception worldwide. It also cracked into the United Kingdom's top-ten high-grossing films during the week of its release. Ayngaran International distributes a majority of Tamil films overseas while domestic distributors such as Aascar Films, Pyramid Saimira, and Madras Talkies handle distribution within India. The Kamal Haasan starrer Dasavathaaram was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures in Canada.
Many Tamil-language films have premiered or have been selected as special presentations at various prestigious film festivals across the world, such as Kannathil Muthamittal, Veyyil and Paruthiveeran. More recently, Kanchivaram, directed by Priyadarshan, has been selected to be premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Films like Thevar Magan, Indian and Jeans had been selected by India for Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards.
Tamil films enjoy significant patronage in neighbouring Indian states like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. In Kerala and Karnataka the films are directly released in Tamil but in Andhra Pradesh they are generally dubbed into Telugu. There is a fair amount of dispersion amongst the Indian film industries. Many successful Tamil films have been remade by the Hindi and Telugu film industries. Kollywood has also remade a fair number of Hindi-, Telugu-, Malayalam-, and other-language films. It is estimated by the Manorama Yearbook 2000 (a popular almanac) that over 5,000 Tamil films were produced in the 20th century. Tamil films have also been dubbed into other languages, thus reaching a much wider audience. Examples of those dubbed into Hindi include such hits as Minsaara Kanavu, Roja and Bombay. Anniyan, directed by S. Shankar, became the second Indian film to be dubbed into French.
Superstars
Initially, Kollywood was dominated by M. K. Thyagaraja Bagavadhar and P. U. Chinnappa during the 1930s and 1940's. Later, in the 1950s till late 1970s, the two highly anticipated Tamil film stars were M. G. Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan, and from the 1980s till now are Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan. By the 1990s there were many stars in the industry. However, Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan still dominated the decade and brought Kollywood to a new level. The former starred quality films under his production while the latter raised the bar in commercial and family entertainers and became the highest paid actor in the India.
During the 90s, the present generation of young superstars, Joseph Vijay and Ajith Kumar, had debuted. Today along with veterans Kamal Hassan and Rajnikanth, actors Joseph Vijay, Surya Sivakumar, Vikram and Ajith Kumar are prominent leading stars who guarantee a good box office opening and appear in most high-budget feature films. These stars have exclusive fanclubs that often resort to passionate display of support. Distributors of films of the stars are able to arrange financing of film-in-progress from banks and exhibitors without much difficulty.
Domestic exhibitors
Show rentals range from Rs.700 in C-centres to as much as Rs.7,000 in A-centres for an average 700-seat screen. Unlike Hollywood, superstardom is deeply ingrained into Kollywood economics, so distributors are prepared to not only finance the films of super stars with proven track records but are also, in turn, able to secure minimum guarantees for those films from exhibitors. Rise of multiplexes in the late 1990s has stunted the growth of large screens.
Theatre Seats Location
Sathyamcomplex total of 2,380 Chennai
ARRS multiplex 2200 Salem
Reliance adlabs 2000 Salem
KG complex 2000 Coimbatore
Albert 1,225 Chennai
Devi 1,212 Chennai
Melody 998 Chennai
Abirami 927 Chennai
Kasi 917 Chennai
Central 900 Coimbatore
Maruti 900 Coimbatore
Sangam 877 Chennai
Maharani 733 Chennai
Udhayam 700 Chennai
Royal 650 Coimbatore
Santham 567 Chennai
Padmam 540 Chennai
Suriyan 480 Chennai
Devi Bala 369 Chennai
Subham 306 Chennai
Mayajaal 3000+ Chennai
Inox 909 Chennai
Abirami 1500 Erode
Sonamena 1200 Trichy
Kalaiarangam 1500 Trichy
