It is a tale as old as time. The two sides to every coin come face up at one point or the other. Putting this in the context of the media and entertainment industry, it is quite visible that JioCinema, a leading OTT streaming platform in the country, is highly divided in the content that it has added to its libraries.
On the one hand, it is posing as one of the torch bearers in terms of fan-approved, original Indian content like the Kay Kay Menon led ‘Shekhar Home’, the Riteish Deshmukh-Fardeen Khan starrer ‘Visfot’, the Riteish Deshmukh led ‘Pill’, the Pratik Gandhi-Khushali Kumar led ‘Dedh Bigha Zameen’, and more. On the other, rather disappointing hand, the streamer is making poor choices in acquiring theatrical releases for itself.
Case in point: JioCinema has most recently acquired streaming rights to ‘Russian’, the Aayush Sharma and Sushrii Shreya Mishraa led 2024 Hindi-language action film that completely bombed at the box office with a meagre collection of Rs. 2.7 Crore, as opposed to its whopping budget of Rs. 25 Crore.
This comes following other, equally disappointing theatrical acquisitions like ‘Guardian’, the Tamil-language horror film, Vijay Deverakonda and Mrunal Thakur’s ‘The Family Star’, and so on. What this is indefinitely doing is diluting the overall quality of the platform.
Which is to say, the platform must be more critical of its additions in order to keep audiences hooked.