Dubai Crisis Has Bollywood On Tenterhooks

NEW DELHI: Shah Rukh is building a stadium there, Yash Raj Films has signed a multimillion-dollar venture with an investment company, and fashion designers Rohit Bal and Tarun Tahiliani are looking to set up their boutiques in the desert city — Dubai has always been the land of opportunity for Indians. But with the city’s economy plummeting to alarming levels, and premieres of three biggest Bollywood releases planned in the city being called off, the question is, is Dubai
still the place to strike gold?

Home away from home
For Bollywood, Dubai and the Middle-East are the biggest overseas markets generating nearly 50 per cent of international revenues. “The crisis will definitely take a beating on the recent releases and those that are lined up,” says trade analyst Taran Adarsh. “For an A-grade film, over 40 per cent of the collection comes from overseas and Dubai contributes a major 10-15 per cent. Dubai is one of the few overseas markets where Hindi films release on Thursdays. A bad audience response there, in the wake of the crisis, would affect the business here in India. So producers might skip releasing their films in Dubai for a while,” says trade analyst Komal Nahata.

Things have already started looking grim. Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Paa’s grand premiere in Dubai this week was called off by Reliance Big Pictures sighting ‘logistic constraints’. Not just films, concerts and entertainment shows have also been hit. Says singer Rahul Vaidya, who recently did a Dandiya show at Airport Expo in Dubai, “Earlier the shows were jam-packed. This time, it was disappointing to see just about 2,500 people in an arena of 12,000.”

Says singer Shibani Kashyap, who was scheduled to perform in Dubai next month, “The event managers are [now] telling me we don’t know when it can happen.”

High stakes
Bollywood’s stakes in Dubai go beyond films. Actor Shah Rukh Khan owns a 5,000 square feet, $1.8-million (Rs 8 crore) villa in The Palms, apart from pledging investment in an upcoming AED 8 billion signature beachfront residential development called Shahrukh Boulevard, the rates of which have already gone down by 30 per cent.  Actors Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor and Suniel Shetty also reportedly have  invested in the city’s real estate market. Whether the stars now do a rethink on their investment remains to be seen.