Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the looks of Indian entertainment industry changed completely. With the theatres being shut and shootings halted, there was no answer for the movies which were scheduled to release and hence were postponed. Then the streaming platforms came to the rescue of the makers and purchased several movies that were originally made for theatres.
With, direct to OTT release being certainly new in the Indian market, people were low-key excited to get to watch the movies of their favourite celebrities directly from the comfort of their homes without worrying to wait for the theatres to open. This movie proved to be a success with the blockbuster response to the Late Sushant Singh Rajput’s Dil Bechara which broke the records for many OTT releases.
Seeing this, more actors and producers struck deals with some or the other OTT platforms going for the direct releases. But no movie came out as huge success. Movies with big names such as Penguin, Gulabo Sitabo, V, Laxmii, etc didn’t go well with the critics as well as the audience and this raised a doubt regarding OTT releases.
People started to think that no release up until now has been an outright success and the popular opinion of all the movies has been underwhelming. Seeing that the star factor has also not been able to save the film, a desparate change of situation was required.
Now barring one or two releases no movie seems to be giving the desiring results as the makers would have expected. And with situation slowly coming back to normal, it would be interesting to see how the future OTT releases plans out. Still there are two-three movies which have star factor in them. With Ajay Devgn’s “Bhuj : Pride of India” slated to arrive this year followed by Abhishek Bachchan’s “The Big Bull” on Hotstar, Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan’s “Coolie No.1” on Amazon Prime, the makers of these movies will be desparately hoping to strike a chord with the audience to get that prestigious “Hit” tag beside their films.
Seeing that government has allowed theatres to reopen with Suraj Pe Mangal Bhaari set to arrive on 15th November 2020 theatrically, it seems that Film Industry has started to move on with the flow. Now it will be interesting to see that as things come back to normal, how will OTT platforms pursue filmmakers for a direct to OTT release.
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