One of the last projects of Thalapathy Vijay before his shift to full time politics, The Greatest of All Times (GOAT) will be released on September 5th, Thursday. The film has been made with a huge budget of 340 crores and will be the biggest venture of AGS Entertainment (the production house) till date. The movie is an action thriller and will cast Vijay in double roles. As the movie advances towards its release, the tension builds up as to how it will perform in the box office.
The latest news confirms that the movie will be released only in Tamil and Telugu initially. The production team obviously plans on launching the film in Hindi dub as well, but it will not be possible just after its release. Also, at least after eight weeks of release we will also get the update regarding the OTT rights of the film. This leaves very close time for the Hindi release to gather an audience. If the film wants a global impact, Hindi dub is a must for that purpose. Kalki 2898 AD is the highest grossing Indian film of this year, and Hindi dub accounts for the highest business. The maximum possible audience for the film will be Hindi speaking people and Hindi becomes a game changer for a movie. Also, as the first week of September does not have any Hindi releases, this could have been a great time to dominate the Hindi audience for the makers by immediately releasing the film in Hindi.
The stalling of Hindi release of the film can decrease the potential business expected by the film. The immediate release in regional languages and making the audience wait for Hindi dub can lessen the buzz created around the film. The Hindi audience can also be spoiled about the contents of the movie further decreasing their interests. If the makers take more time releasing the Hindi dub, it might happen that the audience will neglect watching the cinemas and will wait for OTT release instead. The makers can argue that releasing the film in regional languages will allow the Hindi audience to watch the film in its original language and then again in Hindi. But oftentimes this is not the case. Recently Thangalaan was released and it took them more than three weeks to release the Hindi dub for the movie. As a result, there is no more hype around the movie and the Hindi release is not sure to receive the treatment it originally got.
Hence the strategy of releasing the film in regional languages first and then making the audience wait for Hindi release is a bad strategy for the production team. Especially, when you spend more than 300 crores while making the film, you must not take risks for it. The audience cannot be made to wait. Soon they will find something else and the buzz for this movie won’t remain the same hence reducing their income.