A highly anticipated Malayalam thriller, ‘Cold Case‘ is premiering on Amazon Prime Video, by the end of this month. A trailer was released on Amazon Prime Video’s official YouTube channel, which announced the movie’s OTT release, a few days ago. And upon release, this movie will become the fourth Malayalam OTT-intended movie to be released on a streaming platform, after ‘C U Soon’, ‘Irul’ and ‘Joji’. Confused? Let us explain.
‘C U Soon’, upon releasing on Amazon Prime Video, set a huge precedent – it became the first Malayalam movie to be released on an OTT platform which was made to be released for a streaming platform. No Malayalam movie (featuring a Malayalam superstar at least) has ever been made solely for a digital platform and what’s more, the movie became a critical and “subscription” success (a lot of users streamed the movie). Almost 12 months later, only 2 other Malayalam movies that were made for streaming have been released on an OTT – ‘Joji’ and ‘Irul’ and they too featuring the same superstar from ‘C U Soon’ – Fahadh Faasil.
So when the Prithviraj starring ‘Cold Case’ was given an OTT release date, we knew that we were finally seeing a change from the established “theatrical norms”. Because (in case you guys didn’t know), ‘Cold Case’ was a movie that was supposed to be released directly on an OTT platform in the first place. And it might have taken almost 11 months, but we are finally seeing a movie not starring Fahadh Faasil, which will be released directly onto an OTT platform, as it was intended at the time of pre-production.
Kerala will still take some more time before the state allows theatres to be open to the general public again. And with how rapidly small-to-medium theatre owners are forced to shut down their business, small-to-medium budget films will not even be considered against big-budgeted, mega-star filled films. So now would be the time for Malayalam filmmakers to opt for creating films that are made for direct-to-OTT releases. This partnership will be beneficial to the Malayalam film industry in the long run and it will help promote new and upcoming filmmakers who can show proficiency while working with less budget. At least, this is what the OTT release of ‘Cold Case’ will do for the South Indian film Industry.
‘Cold Case’ will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on June 30th 2021. Check out the trailer down below: