Producer-distributor Gaurav Dhingra used the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of Angh to put a hard number on a structural shift in Hindi film economics. The Konyak-language film, set in Nagaland in the 1960s, premiered at TIFF on September 15, and Dhingra’s broader message was aimed squarely at the collapse of the mid-budget movie.
The revenue stack that broke
Dhingra, founder of Jungle Book Studios, said the mid-sized Hindi film space that once produced titles such as Gangs Of Wasseypur, Shanghai and Bareilly Ki Barfi has effectively disappeared. The reason is not creative. It is the sharp fall in television channel revenue.
Satellite rights now fetch a mere Rs. 10 lakhs
, he said, compared with crores a decade ago. For a producer spending Rs. 30 crore on production and another Rs. 10 crore on marketing, the old satellite cheque was a critical de-risking tool. Now, he argued, the math no longer closes.
Dhingra pointed to three structural constraints:
- Satellite rights have fallen from crores to roughly Rs. 10 lakh.
- Only three players exist in the streaming space, reducing competition for digital rights.
- Music rights are concentrated, removing another revenue line that once supported mid-budget films.
The result, he said, is a market that now supports only super-small-budget films or big-budget tentpoles. The middle layer—films with content, entertainment, depth and music—has been hollowed out.
How Jungle Book Studios plans to respond
Dhingra said his company wants to target that missing segment, but with tighter financial discipline. Rather than spending Rs. 100 crore, the plan is to work with budgets around Rs. 20 crore and structure projects differently. The goal is not to recreate the old economics but to build a model that can survive without the satellite floor.
Peddlers: a 16-year window problem
The interview also surfaced a long-pending title. Dhingra was a co-producer on Peddlers, made in 2010, starring Gulshan Devaiah and Nimrat Kaur and directed by Vasan Bala. Eros International, Anurag Kashyap and Guneet Monga were the film’s producers. Asked whether the film could ever release on OTT, Dhingra said only Eros can answer: Aap iss film pe kyun baithe hue ho 16 saal se?
He added that the experience taught him self-reliance. Instead of depending on other partners, Jungle Book Studios is taking distribution and financing into its own hands.
What this means for media planners and buyers
For ScreenStat readers, the story is not just about one producer’s frustration. It is a signal that the Indian rights market has repriced. Media planners and streaming buyers should expect fewer mid-budget Hindi theatrical releases, more direct-to-digital experiments, and continued pressure on satellite as a reach vehicle. The number to watch is the gap between production cost and guaranteed pre-sales: when satellite contributes only Rs. 10 lakh, every other window has to work much harder.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
