With the coronavirus pandemic taking a heavy toll on the cinema business, many filmmakers have decided to take their projects to video streaming platforms, instead of waiting for a theatrical release.
While Shoojit Sircar’s Gulabo Sitabo starring Ayushmann Khurrana and Amitabh Bachchan has been acquired by Amazon Prime Video for streaming, Akshay Kumar’s horror-comedy Laxxmi Bomb is all set to stream on Disney+ Hotstar.
According to a report in Livemint, other films which are also most likely to premiere on OTT platforms are Vidya Balan-starrer Shakuntala Devi, Karan Johar’s Gunjan Saxena-The Kargil Girl featuring Jahnvi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan’s, Jhund and Chehre, and Anurag Basu-directed Ludo starring Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sanya Malhotra and Fatima Sana Sheikh. T-Series too, is reportedly in talks with Netflix for a digital release of its films like Indoo Ki Jawani starring Kiara Advani and Chhalaan.
The films which are eyeing a digital release, belong to the upper-mid range of films, according to a Bollywood producer.
Tentpoles such as Sooryavanshi and ’83 are anyway out of reach for OTTs and they will push people to theatres whenever they reopen. Hence, the streaming platforms are eyeing films, which would anyway have been second to big films in a theatre.
Bollywood has so far stuck to an eight-week window between the theatrical and digital release, which also helped OTT platforms pick up films after seeing a theatrical validation. However, the same won’t be applicable anymore. These platforms are ready to acquire good content for audiences sitting at home.
Hence, a film like Gulabo Sitabo which would normally sell for ₹20-25 crore to a digital platform post-theatrical release, is now in a position to command more, possibly in excess of ₹30 crore.
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