Netflix has had a decent start to the year so far, with the recent releases of Cobra Kai Season 3, The History of Swear Words, Lupin, The White Tiger, etc. to name a few, but the OTT giant hasn’t had a profound regional Indian hit on the streaming service for a very long time while Netflix’s counterparts – Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar have been releasing hit after regional hit on their streaming platforms. With releases like Soorarai Pottru, which was the one of the biggest Indian movies of 2020 as well as the Amazon’s latest release of Thalapathy Vijay’s Master, we believe that Netflix has bought the direct-to-OTT streaming rights for Dhanush’s Jagame Thandhiram so as to keep their Indian regional subscribers from “jumping ship”.
Of course, Amazon Prime Video has recently come under fire after their much anticipated web series Mirzapur Season 2 and the political thriller series Tandav both “hurt the religious sensibilities” of Hindu Nationalists. With many Indian subscribers, especially many regional ones have been slowly jumping from Netflix to Amazon Prime – due to their vast and current library which features current hits, Netflix somehow managed to convince the film producer S. Sashikanth to release the Dhanush starrer Jagame Thandhiram directly on the streaming platform. This will help Netflix in keeping their current Indian subscriber base interested while “sticking it to their rivals, while they are still down”.
Of course, this move by Netflix and S.Sashikanth has been condemned by the theater and cinema owners along with Jagame Thandhiram star Dhanush, among others – all of them against the direct-to-OTT move. This move has actually caused another defunct movement by Tamil cinema owners to return with a vengeance – a movement which stipulates that movies which are releasing in theaters have to run in theaters for a minimum of 30 days before it can be released on any OTT platform.
But no matter how you look at it, this was a masterful move by Netflix. Netflix hasn’t been associated with many regional films or web series in a long time and for them to snap up Dhanush’s Jagame Thandhiram is going to help them in the long run – in terms of subscriptions and new users.
Jagame Thandhiram is expected to release on Netflix by the end of this month (February) or March 2021.
We’re hiring!
We are hiring two full-time junior to mid-level writers with the option to work remotely. You need to work a 5-hour shift and be available to write. Interested candidates should email their sample articles to [email protected]. Applications without a sample article will not be considered.
