Netflix India and Prime Video India are afflicted with a strange disease – a weird tendency to be extremely secretive about their acquired Indian movie releases. And this weird secrecy is the reason why both platforms ALWAYS drop all their high-profile releases without ANY prior notice or clue about the releases.
Subscribers of both platforms, as well as industry trackers, are always taken by surprise when, out of the blue, much-awaited films begin streaming on Netflix India and Prime Video India.
Both Netflix India and Prime Video India have a penchant for dropping buzzy films on their platforms silently, in the dead of the night, when most Indians are in slumberland.
And then viewers wake up in the morning to find that XYZ film is streaming on Prime Video India or Netflix India – always without notice.
This morning, all of us lesser mortals woke up to find that Dhanush’s much-anticipated ‘Naane Varuvean’ is streaming on Prime Video. The platform has a similar record with all of its hyped releases, be it Sita Ramam or Bachchan Pandey or every other movie Prime Video has premiered in recent times.
Netflix India acts in a similar fashion. Remember Laal Singh Chaddha’s sudden arrival on Netflix? Or a gazillion other releases?
Both Prime Video India and Netflix India drop movies all of a sudden, as if informing viewers beforehand will jinx their platforms somehow – the age-old Indian belief of ‘nazar’ and all.
So, is that what’s with the secrecy, folks? Superstitious beliefs in ‘nazar’?
All the other platforms – be it Disney Plus Hotstar, ZEE5, SonyLIV or Voot Select – always give notice before premiering all their films.
But NEVER Prime Video and Netflix.
Divas, much?