If you guys haven’t heard this already, then here you go – Dulquer Salmaan‘s next Malayalam movie will be released directly for streaming on a major Indian OTT platform. This upcoming movie is called Salute and it will be streaming on SonyLIV after 10 days. SonyLIV has released around 5 Malayalam movies on their OTT platform so far – and nearly all of them have done well. But none of these movies were big-budget features and hence many of them have gone unnoticed. With the acquisition of Salute, SonyLIV has now got the streaming rights of their first big-budget Malayalam movie.
Films like Madhuram, Kaanekkaane and Thinkalazhcha Nishchayam are brilliant movies that have to be watched – but would likely have not been released on a major OTT platform like Amazon Prime Video or Disney+ Hotstar for a variety of reasons. This is where SonyLIV comes in. The OTT platform is already known for its sports streaming and decent Hindi content – however, the Indian streaming company has been trying to gain a foothold in the South Indian film industry for some time now. The OTT platform gambled with Kaanekkaane and the rest was history.
However, the aforementioned films didn’t have many major Malayalam stars. Sure, Joju George, Tovino Thomas and Suraj Venjaramoodu are exceptions to the previously mentioned statement – but all three actors are well known for being part of small-scale, low budget projects. While doing smaller projects aren’t necessarily a bad thing, it will, unfortunately, fail to attract a good portion of the Malayali crowd. This is why SonyLIV’s acquisition of Salute is equivalent to striking gold for the OTT platform. A big-budget feature featuring an actor known for his big-budget films (AKA Dulquer Salman) will attract a lot more subscribers to SonyLIV than the aforementioned movies.
Salute will release directly for streaming on SonyLIV, later this month on 18th March 2022. Check out the trailer for this upcoming Malayalam feature below: