What Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar claimed may have been true until mid-March last year. But the year that followed proved Kumar wrong. And it proved right Uday Shankar, president, of the Walt Disney Company APAC and chairman, of Star and Disney India.
Akshay had claimed: “Movies will always be the first birthright of the theatres.” Well, so it was until Covid-19 lashed India and the world.
Uday was unequivocal in his disagreement with Kumar. He had said: “Movies are the birthright of nobody but the audiences.”
Therefore, it is least relevant how movies and other entertainment content are made available to the audiences. And OTT (Over The Top) platforms or Direct Digital Releases (DDR) are doing exactly that today – making movies and every other entertainment content that is the birthright of the audiences.
The traditional dynamics that have ruled and run the Indian film and entertainment industry are gradually becoming antiquated. The viewing medium is shifting fast from theatres and television sets to computer screens and mobile phones and as more and more movies and other entertainment contents are getting released on various OTT platforms including Netflix, Amazon, Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, Voot, Sony LIV, ALTBalaji, MX Player, Eros Now, Jio Cinema, Zee5, BIGFlix etc.
Gulabo Sitabo, a big-budget Bollywood movie starring Amitabha Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana, may have pioneered the change. It debuted on Amazon Prime Video and was followed on its heels by Choked, Chintu ka Birthday, Ghoomketu, Mrs Serial Killer, Maska, Bamfaad, What Are The Odds, Ateet. They all helped set a trend by debuting on various OTT platforms. Indian cinema, especially Hindi movies, began shifting online making movie watching easier and more affordable.
Gulabo Sitabo: The trendsetter
The trend that Gulabo Sitabo set in encouraged Bollywood biggies like Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan and Alia Bhatt to break away from the tradition and agree on selling their movies to OTT platforms. The trend set in by Gulabo Sitabo opened the floodgate for many more Bollywood movies to premiere on OTT platforms in 2020. They include some big-budget movies like Shakuntala Devi on Amazon Prime Video, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl on Netflix, Dil Bechara on Disney+Hotstar, Sadak 2 on Disney+Hotstar, Laxmii on Disney+Hotstar, Ludo on Netflix, Khaali Peeli on Zee Plex, Khuda Hafiz on Disney+Hotstar, Lootcase on Disney+Hotstar, Durgamati on Amazon Prime Video and Coolie No 1, a remake of the 1995 film of the same name, on Amazon Prime Video.
More than anything else, at the core of this shift from theatres to OTT platforms lies the uncertainties and stagnation that the Covid pandemic has wrought on the Indian cinema industry in general. The contagion and consequential lockdown dented the industry beyond any quick recovery; the industry shrunk by over 29 percent in the first quarter of last year alone simply because a huge amount of money of the Rs183 billion industry got stuck due to non-release of many a movie.
The Covid impact
Blood was gushing out of Bollywood from everywhere. Covid and the resultant lockdown virtually wrecked India’s Hindi film industry forcing Akshay Kumar to admit “…with the pandemic, we are seeing a situation where we have created this space (OTT) where more and more audiences can enjoy what we make for them …”, while announcing direct to digital release of Laxmmi Bomb – a horror comedy.
The second wave of the pandemic and fresh bouts of lockdown drove the last nail into the coffins of India’s theatre halls and the way movies were released since time immemorial. The new situation made all the downstream business of the film industry stand wobbling at the threshold of both disaster and change. The emergence of OTT platforms, “propelled by,” as Khushboo Solanki Sharma says, “the rise in the standard of living, evolution of smartphones, ubiquitous and affordable Internet connectivity coupled with increasing penetration in rural areas” may make the distributing business of cinemas virtually redundant.
But Direct Digital Releases opened new vistas for the industry. Apart from offering a leeway to get out of the stagnation the industry found itself in the wake of the pandemic and lockdowns, the OTT platforms, as Uday Shankar said, offered “an opportunity to grow the market and for more films to be made and released. It is deeply strategic and the right thing for all” because “the potential of the film industry and the viewership it has managed so far has been restricted because of India’s limited screen count and the release windows available which in turn, restrict … output and the appetite of audiences.”
OTT, the redeemer
It would certainly not be an exaggeration to say that the Indian film industry including Bollywood would have collapsed and become bankrupt had the Direct Digital Releases or OTT platforms not come as a redeemer. Industry analyst Girish Johar was quoted in the media saying: “This is the first time in our history that the entire India box office is zero.”
OTT platforms, which according to Boston Consulting Group is expected to grow to $5 billion by 2023, have indeed become game-changer for the movie industry. But will it sound the death knell for theatre halls and replace theatrical experiences? Fear in the industry is palpable as many feel that with OTT becoming the next normal for Indian entertainment industry, the OTT platforms will change the content, manner of release, star compensation, and even the way movies are filmed thereby eliminating distribution business.
Optimism, however, has not yet left the industry. Theatre owner have still not given up hopes and have not downed their curtains. The findings of Ormax Media still keep the hope burning in them. The Ormax survey says 82 percent Indians miss going to the theatres. And Alok Tandon, chief executive officer of Indian theatre operator Inox Leisure Ltd., went on record saying, “We have got a lot of assurance from our producer friends that they all believe in the power of a theatrical exhibition.”
But there’s no denying the fact that the pandemic has changed the industry. It is unlikely to follow an unwritten rule of maintaining eight-week gap between digital and theatrical premiere of films. The gap is certain to come down to three or four weeks. The clout of the theatres has probably reduced for good and theatre owners are in no position to control digital and satellite premieres.
Production houses are waiting for the theatres to reopen because nothing can replace the experience of watching a movie in a theatre hall but with the monopoly of the halls now cut to size, cinema has indeed shifted from the clutches of theatre owners to the audiences. Movies have now truly become the birth right of the audiences.
The views are the author’s own.
