Suriya announced today that the release of his next action drama thriller Soorarai Pottru will be coming out directly on Amazon Prime Video. The ‘twitter announced’ decision received quite a mixed bag of reactions from the South Indian Film Community ranging from applause to uproar.
He posted a letter side-by-side with the film poster which announced the date and streaming service, giving a brief idea on what was happening behind the scenes. In the letter he wished everyone a happy Vinayaga Chathurthi and proceeded to explain that he had to take decisions as a producer of the movie, not as it’s main star. He wished he could watch the movie in theaters just like his fans, but with the current pandemic situation, such an option is not viable. So with getting the movie to the audience in mind, he decided to opt for a digital release.
And this has been the case for most movie producers. Having made the movie before the pandemic, the production company has been sitting on the project waiting for the corona-virus to reduce and the lockdown to be done with. But fast forward four – five months, the lockdown doesn’t seem to have an end at the moment. Waiting much longer could get disastrous, even for a movie containing a mega-star like Suriya.
With the producers facing multiple threats on different fronts like piling interests for the loans borrowed for the movie, piracy issues because of a big name actorand a big production movie, OTTs seem to be the only answer for them at this point. Just for Soorarai Pottru, a film that required shooting with an aircraft, the plane costed around 47 Lakh Rupees to rent per day. And they needed the plane for around couple of weeks for shooting. This is just one of the big budgetary requirements from just one movie. Piracy is a major threat, especially with an actor like Suriya on-board. It won’t be fully solved since subscription based viewing is relatively new to our country, and people will find some ways to pirate the movie. Amazon will likely be prepared to take the hit, if it means they can gain new subscribers.
While movie goers are rejoicing the fact that they are getting to finally watch the movie which was supposed to be released months ago, Suriya is getting a lot of flak from the Tamil Distribution Community. Distributor Tiruppur Subramaniam has come out and called Suriya’s decision a selfish one, adding this is an attempt to close all theaters completely. He said that while the producers will make money, the distributors have been hung out to dry.
While this decision won’t stop anyone from going to theaters, it will still be a long time before it is safe to go to theaters again. Suriya has added that he had 10 more movie lined up by his production company and eventually his movies will get to cinemas, when it is safe.
Soorarai Pottru is inspired by the retired army veteran Captain GR Gopinath, who founded the budget airlines, Air Deccan. You can watch the movie in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam on Amazon Prime Video on October 30th.
Vinayagar Chathurthi wishes to all!#SooraraiPottruOnPrime @PrimeVideoIN pic.twitter.com/ZdYSF52ye2
— Suriya Sivakumar (@Suriya_offl) August 22, 2020
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