In case you haven’t heard yet, theatres in Kerala are opening by the end of this month (October), which means hit films like ‘Shang Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings‘, ‘Free Guy‘ among others are going to release in the South Indian state. This also means that highly anticipated Malayalam films that were on the verge of releasing on various OTT platforms earlier are likely going to get a theatrical release now. Films like ‘Kurup‘, ‘Roy’ and ’12th Man’ are now likely to premiere in theatres, instead of streaming platforms. If this happens, Mollywood could take a huge hit to its pan-Indian OTT appeal.
‘The Great Indian Kitchen’, ‘C U Soon’, ‘Drishyam 2’, ‘Joji’, ‘Malik’, ‘Kaanekkanne’ among others are Malayalam movies that have a few things in common. One, they are all really good films that were released directly for streaming on various OTT platforms. Two, due to how good these films were, they managed to grab the attention of many non-Malayali, Indian subscribers, film lovers and critics – giving the films pan-Indian appeal. Three, due to these continuous string of good OTT releases (including films that were released on OTTs after theatrical release), the Malayalam film Industry AKA Mollywood became a new marketplace for OTT platforms to search for new content creators and content.
All of these reasons led to the popularity of the Malayalam film industry, which meant that subscribers were on the lookout for any Malayalam films that dropped on an OTT platform. With Kerala theatres being closed for almost 16 months (in total), many Malayali film producers had no other option but to release their movies directly for streaming. But with theatres now opening by the 25th of October, we should see a shift in dynamic.
Sure, the Malayalam films which will premiere in theatres will still release their movies on streaming platforms. But the movie will not get as much attention as it would have during its initial theatrical release or if it was released directly for streaming. And that will seriously hurt Mollywood’s current pan-Indian OTT popularity.
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