Nandamuri Balakrishna‘s Akhanda is doing pretty well at the Telugu box office. The film opened on a strong note and went on to carry the momentum over the first weekend. The poor reviews had no effect on the film’s box office run. Now, the film is gearing up for its OTT premieres. In all likelihood, Akhanda will be streaming on Disney+ Hotstar from the second week of January 2022, marking the Sankranthi season.
While Akhanda might not be a tailor-made film for Telugu OTT, given the mass overload, what it does have are the X factor element and the star value. Akhanda is the first 100 crores grossed from Tollywood after the Covid second wave. There is a whole lot of anticipation surrounding the film. Also, Balakrishna has come up with a stellar performance in the film. This should attract the majority of the Telugu audience at least for a few days post Akhanda’s premieres on OTT.
Akhanda is loaded with heavy duty action blocks including the hero entry fight, the interval fight, and the climax fight which have repeat value. Those who have watched the film in theatres might watch the film, or at least selective parts of it again on OTT. The end point is that Akhanda, despite being an action thriller, a genre that isn’t necessarily popular in the OTT space, has the X factor that can pull the OTT audience.
Disney+ Hotstar should devise a killer marketing plan to publicize the arrival of Akhanda on their platform. This should help the OTT platform get better exposure in the regional OTT market.