This Diwali releases have broken all records of film promotion budget

As the three big Diwali releases, All The Best, Main Aurr Mrs Khanna and Blue, are gearing up for release, it comes to light that both the films have broken all records of promotions budgets for a film.

While Devgn Productions claim they've spent Rs 5 crore on publicity sources say they have actually spent double of that. While Blue has apparently spent 12 crores to create curiosity about their film. Main Aurr Mrs Khanna also releases on Diwali. Producer Sohail Khan, says, "I don't think publicity budgets need to be fixed. It depends from producer to producer."

In the South, there is a fixed sum that the producers can spend on the publicity of a film. They can't go beyond that. This is done to protect smaller producers, who don't have deep pockets. This way of functioning helps the whole industry.

Ajay Devgn's All The Best has been apparently made at a cost of more than 35 crore. Director Rohit Shetty, says, "Publicity budgets have increased between 25-30 per cent in the last one year. There are many avenues like more channels, websites and paid advertising avenues opening up which has drastically increased the publicity budgets of films. This cuts into the profit of the films as then the film needs to recover that extra Rs 4 crore spent on publicity. I think there should be some regulatory body fixing the costs."

Shree Ashtavinayak, producers of Blue have apparently spent almost 12 crore on the publicity. According to Dhilin Mehta, "The publicity amount to be spent on each movie differs from project to project. The publicity budget of Blue is much higher then that of Kidnap because the film is big, the underwater concept is being used for the first time in India. The estimate of the publicity budget of the film is roughly decided when we prepare the budget of the film before the start of the shoot, and varies between 8 to 10% of the film's cost. "