To make up for box office losses, a number of films, including SS Rajamouli’s RRR, Vijay’s Beast, and Telugu feature Acharya, have chosen for faster OTT debuts than originally agreed, reigniting the issue over the decreasing gap between theatrical and digital distribution of films. Because of the disappointing reaction to Ram Charan’s Telugu film RRR, which was supposed to be released 75-100 days following its theatrical release, it was released on OTT within two months. Several more are available on Netflix less than a month after its theatrical premiere.
“RRR was sold to distributors for stratospheric prices before its debut, but the box office returns were not up to scratch. While the movie isn’t a flop, it’s important to remember that a lot has changed since the epidemic, numerous theatres have closed for good, and it’s easy for material to look disappointing when consumers have been exposed to such high-quality standards,” stated an anonymous film industry expert.
Film producers may charge a premium of between 5 and 10 crores from the streaming platform by shrinking the window between theatre and digital distribution, according to the source.
Producers, according to independent trade analyst Sreedhar Pillai, refuse to recognize that the theatrical medium’s strength has waned. High ticket costs and the discovery of OTT by more viewers in the last two years has resulted in reduced footfalls, especially in north India, he added. “The picture was killed by the film’s 100-day window in 1983. Even the popular KGF: Chapter 2 has gone for early access through Amazon Prime Video’s pay-per-view model,” added Pillai, who predicts the window will shrink even further by the end of the year.
According to Gautam Jain, partner at media consultancy firm Ormax, one of the main developments in streaming rights for theatrical films has been platforms’ reduced urgency in obtaining rights, particularly to mid- and small-budget films and pictures for direct-to-digital debuts. “Previously, platforms were paying a premium to get streaming rights owing of the epidemic. They now prefer, however, that films be released in theatres first. “The prices of big-budget films are tied to their box office results,” he explained.
On OTT services, movies are undeniably popular. Four Indian films were among Netflix’s top ten non-English films worldwide for the week of May 16-22. Gangubai Kathiawadi, RRR (Hindi), Jersey, and Raw (Hindi) were among the most popular, with 8.8 million, 7.1 million, 4.4 million, and 2.5 million hours seen, respectively.
“We feel that windows benefit all stakeholders and the environment as a whole.” Due to the ongoing epidemic, the windows were temporarily altered. By the end of July 2022, we will revert to the previous eight-week window,” said Kamal Gianchandani, CEO of PVR Pictures Ltd.
