The Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the Indian film industry, most significantly, Bollywood. And its effects are being felt even now. Footfalls in cinemas are at an all-time low, big ticket Hindi films are flopping left, right and center, and potential theatrical releases are cancelling their cinema release and going direct to digital.
An interesting thing has happened in the midst of all the mayhem. Several top Bollywood stars have been reduced to being only OTT stars now.
How, you may ask.
Well, all the recent films of these actors have skipped theatrical release, and landed on OTT, and not in the theatres. The trend was understandable during the lean Covid-19 times. But films of these stars are going direct to digital on OTT, even now, when cinemas are back to their pre-Covid operations.
The most prominent Bollywood names among these are definitely Abhishek Bachchan (Bob Biswas, Dasvi), Taapsee Pannu (Blurr, Haseen Dillruba, Looop Lapeta), Yami Gautam (Dasvi, A Thursday, and the upcoming ‘Lost’), Vicky Kaushal (Sardar Udham Singh, Govinda Naam Mera), and Sidharth Malhotra (Shershaah, and the upcoming Mission Majnu).
Even stars such as Pankaj Tripathi and Manoj Bajpayee are seen only in OTT projects these days. There’s barely any film coming up in the theatres for the aforementioned actors. And the films that are initially planned to be released in theatres also land up on OTT as time goes by (Govinda Naam Mera, Mission Majnu, Lost, Blurr).
This proves beyond doubt that actors such as Taapsee Pannu, Vicky Kaushal, Yami Gautam are now only OTT stars, save for a few inconsequential roles in big ticket films (for instance, Taapsee Pannu in Dunki).
Interestingly, Kartik Aaryan seems to be the only popular Bollywood actor who’s successfully bucked this trend. Despite a couple of his much-anticipated films releasing on OTT (Dhamaka, Freddy), he’s also given one of the biggest theatrical hits this year in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2.
Let’s see what the future holds for these Bollywood stars turned OTT actors.
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