Soon after Manoj Bajpayee’s riveting legal drama ‘Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai’ made its direct-to-OTT premiere on the Zee5 streaming platform, there was a massive outcry from cinephiles that the film should be released in theatres also. Eventually, in a rare and unprecedented move for the Indian film industry, the massive OTT success and unanimous critical acclaim for ‘Bandaa’ led to the film’s theatrical release last week.
But an important question is: will the film industry and moviegoers witness this reverse trend of OTT to theatrical releases instead of the usual theatrical to OTT norm? To cut a long story short: we don’t think it’s going to happen!
And the simple reason why Bandaa’s OTT to theatrical release strategy most likely won’t become a trend in the near future is because there just aren’t too many films as brilliant as ‘Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai’. And even if such fine films are made in the coming years, then chances are that the makers will realize their value and significance relating to their theatrical prospects and will try to release such kinds of movies in theatres first and then on OTTs. Even the stakeholders of ‘Bandaa’ may have later understood this thing and released their film symbolically in theatres.
Even the OTT platforms in India now want films to complete their theatrical runs before acquiring their digital rights as it also reflects that the makers of those films have confidence in their end product. Moreover, this also helps market the film to the relevant audience segment, thereby reducing marketing costs for OTT companies. So, the point is: in the post-pandemic era, more films might get theatrical releases and the number of films getting a direct-to-OTT release hereafter might turn out to be lesser than before.
We think that a direct-to-OTT film like ‘Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai’ later getting a theatrical release was a rare occurrence for the Indian film industry and it seems highly improbable that it will set a new OTT-to-theatrical release trend for the industry. But whatever happens, the future of the Indian film industry vis-à-vis OTT and theatrical releases looks interesting.