Big screen blues – Leisure News
Everyone saw it coming. Rumours were abound that Bollywood producers were contemplating taking the direct-to-digital route for some of their films. Producer Bhushan Kumar had told india today (‘Cinema, Interrupted’, in issue dated May 11) that he was in talks with a few OTT platforms to premiere his medium-budget, concept-driven fare. Then came the big blow theatre owners had feared.
Director Shoojit Sircar and producers Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar took one of 2020’a most anticipated films, Gulabo Sitabo, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana, to Amazon Prime Video. Calling it a part of the evolution of film business, Lahiri was happy to have the film dubbed in 12 foreign languages for release in 200 countries. “It’s like the parantha is hot and ready to serve. Why keep it for later?” he says. “It won’t be as tasty” Furthermore, Amazon has acquired rights to six more films.
While Netflix has been producing films for a few years and Zee5 has premiered a few in the past, the latest development is telling because Amazon’s slate was not originally made for OTT. The makers had turned to streaming after it became clear a theatrical release was too far in the future. India’s two biggest multiplex chains were not pleased. Multiplex chain INOX, using the analogy of a spurned friend, said in a scathing statement: “Such acts, though isolated, vitiate the atmosphere of mutual partnership and paint these content producers as fair-weather rather than all-weather life-long partners”. It further mentioned that it was considering “taking retributive measures”, which was seen as a threat to the Sircar-directed biopic, Sardar Udham Singh, starring Vicky Kaushal. PVR downplayed the blow, choosing to express faith in cinephiles. “Cinema exhibition has regularly faced competition from new emerging distribution platforms over the last many years, and it has continued to enjoy cine-goers’ patronage and affinity,” said Kamal Gianchandani, CEO, PVR Pictures.
Covid has already caused a sizeable dent in theatrical revenues. In 2019, domestic theatrical business accounted for nearly 60 per cent of India’s Rs 19,100 crore film industry, as per the FICCI-EY Media & Entertainment 2020 report. This figure prompted Ajay Bijli, chairman and managing director of PVR Ltd, to write that OTT platforms would “never be able to replace” theatrical business. “Aberrations like what we’re going through just now, should no way change the structure of the business,” he added.
It’s noteworthy that big-budget films, like Sooryavanshi (Akshay Kumar), ’83 (Ranveer Singh), Master (Vijay) and Radhe: Most Wanted Bhai (Salman Khan), are not the ones getting an OTT release. Films like Shakuntala Devi, also acquired by Amazon Prime, made on a budget of less than Rs 50 crore were expected to hit the double figure mark in their theatrical run. An online release offers producers of small-to medium-scale films a chance to mitigate losses, recover investments. These would have otherwise “suffer[ed] from sub-optimal showcasing because of a backlog of releases” said the Producer’s Guild of India in a statement. “Interest costs are mounting on amounts raised to fund films, with producers having to bear this additional burden with no date in sight for cinemas to re-open,” it said. Low occupancies after re-opening and restricted overseas market has only compounded the woes of producers.
Some filmmakers, like Pushpendra Nath Mishra, have welcomed OTT releases. His debut film, Ghoomketu struggled to get a run in theatres. Starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Anurag Kashyap, it released on Zee5 on May 22 (the platform has already released two other films, Bamfaad and Ateet, during the lockdown). “A filmmaker makes a film to tell the story and not just for the big screen, unless it is a Marvel superhero film or a cinematic spectacle,” says Mishra, glad that his independent film is finally getting an audience who can watch it whenever they like, unlike in theatres where it would get fewer screens and odd show times.
Some though are sticking by theatres. This includes Rohit Shetty, Kabir Khan and British filmmaker Christopher Nolan, whose upcoming film, Tenet, budgeted at $200 million, is going ahead with its original theatrical release date of July 17. In an editorial for a US daily, Nolan focused on those who work in cinemas, ticket sellers, bathroom attendants, those at the food counters, and are equally a part of show business. “When this crisis passes the need for collective human engagement, the need to live and love and laugh and cry together, will be more powerful than ever,” he wrote. Theatre owners in India are hoping this need will draw people to theatres even if it is with a mask on.
