BackViacom18 eyes small towns for MI-5 success
Viacom18 Motion Pictures is releasing the movie a week after its worldwide release on 31 July
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New Delhi: Tom Cruise’s action thriller Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation, the fifth instalment of the series, will release on 7 August, four years after the last movie in the franchise Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol hit theatres, with a marketing campaign not unlike that of a big Bollywood release, and with an eye on small-town India.
Viacom18 Motion Pictures is releasing the movie a week after its worldwide release on 31 July. It is not clear if Viacom 18 delayed the release of Mission: Impossible here so as to focus on the launch of its home production Drishyam on 31 July.
Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation is being marketed pretty much like a Bollywood movie.
“The appetite for Hollywood films in India is on the rise," said Rudrarup Dutta, head of marketing and operations, Viacom18 Motion Pictures. “That comes from not just more awareness of American films but also of the large-scale, spectacular action that distinguishes them."
Dutta claims the marketing strategy for Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation is built around the popularity of the Mission: Impossible brand, its superstar lead Tom Cruise and the jaw-dropping stunts featured. Viacom will have theatre installations where fans can photograph themselves replicating the same stunt that Cruise performs in the movie, that is, dangling out of a moving plane. They can upload these pictures online.
Then there are the contests, winners of which will get passes for an advance screening of the film to be held in real locations in Vienna where the film was shot and to a World Wrestling Entertainment match in New York.
Viacom18 has tie-ins with television channels such as HBO and Ten Sports to push the movie.
Dutta said the company is also eyeing smaller towns, especially because the movie releases in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu also.
“Of course, we are hoping to reach out to MI fanatics and those already aware of the franchise, but this time we are also trying to take the film to smaller towns."
Trade analyst and film critic Taran Adarsh said the film has the potential to open well in tier-II and tier-III towns. “Tom Cruise is a hugely popular name and the MI brand is well-known too. Plus, this is a time when people are very open to Hollywood," he said.
In recent years, big Bollywood releases have surpassed expectations at the box-office in India, and Viacom18 has high hopes for the Tom Cruise starrer. With box-office collection of $24 million, Furious 7, part seven of The Fast and the Furious franchise that released in April, is the highest-grossing Hollywood film ever in the country according to the Internet Movie Database.
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