Since the pandemic, there has been a noticeable boom in OTT subscriptions and daily-users for months. Of course, the lack of choices make the streaming platforms an easy choice. A lot of small-to-medium budget movies which have finished post production during this time period are taking advantage of this boom and their producers are releasing these films in digital streaming platforms in an effort to get quick gratification.
Malayalam production controller and producer Badusha has warned other Mollywood film producers against filmmakers who are coming up with projects which will be released on OTTs. Badusha has said this boom is similar to the previous satellite-television boom , where producers were deceived into selling their films to television channels, which ultimately failed. He has adopted a wait-and-watch approach before committing to any projects currently.
Films like ‘V’, ‘Sadak 2’ and ‘Class Of 83’ which were touted to be successes for the silver screen, have all failed while releasing on streaming platforms. To be fair the last one was meant to be for an OTT release anyway but other small budget films like Cocktail, Virgin Bhanupriya and Penguin haven’t been well received by general audiences or critics. This is not to say there haven’t been any successes. Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl and Dil Bechara have been widely appreciated by audiences, but these kinds of successes have been few and far between.
Most movies which are being cited for OTTs by film producers, have not had any prior discussions with any OTT platforms. Just like any distributors, OTT platform heads need to be convinced by the project, the screenplay, director, actors, etc. Before making a prior deal or having an ‘understanding’ with any streaming service, a lot of producers have been jumping at a chance to work with ‘set for OTT’ projects. The Indian digital space is still at it’s basic development stage and the Malayalam OTT one is at an even lower one; this is something every film producer needs to understand right now.
Badusha warns other producers to first have an idea of the project and then an understanding of which OTT platform has agreed to release the project. Without having these necessary information, producers will likely be taken for a ride. This is the current situation among a lot of less-experienced producers today.
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