Chennai: Budget conscious and concept driven Tamil film producers are drawing the attention of global production houses. Spurred by the success of a series of low budget and new genre films in the state over the last couple of years, international media houses are now keen on grabbing a pie of the growing Tamil cinema market.
Only last week, Foxstar Studios, a joint venture of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Twentieth Century Fox and STAR, struck an alliance with producer C.V. Kumar of Thirukumaran Entertainment , makers of the movie Pizza. Companies like Eros Entertainment and UTV Motion Pictures too are active in Tamil film space. “We find the Tamil industry more creative, experimental , a stickler for schedules and most of all, very fiscally prudent,” said Mr Vijay Singh, CEO of Fox Star Studios. For now, the company has six Tamil movies in its kitty, four with Murugadoss and two with C.V. Kumar.
“After Hindi, the most number of films is made in Tamil and Telugu. This presents a huge business opportunity for big media houses,” said Mr L. Suresh, honorary secretary of the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce.
Also, South Indian regional movies are more profitable owing to the huge movie-going public that they can bank on, according to him.
Driven by professional cost management and using recent technology to its advantage, the South Indian film industry managed to earn a revenue of `2,340 crore last year.