What's all this hoopla in the media about the latest Bond flick releasing early in India?

Quantum of a Date?


The latest bond flick ‘Quantum of Solace’ is just a few days away from release in India on the 7th of November. Ever since it was announced that the movie would be coming out here a week before it does in the U.S., the media pounced on it like a hyena on leftovers. It was proclaimed as some great victory over the U.S. & we started patting our own backs like we had been declared by a simple act of an early release before the U.S. as the most important cinematic nation in the world. It was a shameless parade of false pride over something purely incidental & trivial.  
     
The fact of the matter is that the movie releases in so many places before the 7th in India. It comes out in France, Sweden & UK on the 31st of October. It releases in places like Egypt, South Korea, Jordan, Philippines, Belgium, etc on the 5th of November. In places like Bolivia, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Israel, Serbia, Syria, Slovakia, Lebanon & many others on the 6th Of November. Does it mean by comparison that countries like Serbia & Slovakia are more important markets than India since the movie it releases there earlier? NO!!! It’s just a convenience of release dates and nothing more. They anyways do a lot of business worldwide since Bond is such an iconic character so it’s only a question of timing the release for maximum profits. The Bond Movies are primarily British made & not Hollywood, if anything this one actually opens a week late compared to the UK release (its primary market)

To top it all on the 7th of November in the U.S. Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa is releasing, which means major competition for Bond, something that is missing on the 14th of November. While here in India Dostana is coming out on the 14th  with nothing major on the 7th, Hence the release dates make sense in terms of financial convenience rather than importance to a country else India would share global release dates with at least 90% of the international movies rather than with only 10% as it is now.

The other reason for the early release could also be piracy. Since piracy is well spread through most of India due to ineffective government regulation, the only way to combat it effectively is to have simultaneous global release dates on big movies so as to make maximum profit on them right off the bench. A bond film would be well sought on & well distributed amongst the piracy market in India hence a delayed release would only hit them harder financially as some part of the pie would be eaten away by piracy.

So let’s stop patting our own backs over something so trivial & get on to discussing something more worthy of our time & effort.

 

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