OTT Platforms Vs Theatres

Change is the only constant.

In fact our whole human history is filled with theories of evolution. With time everything changes and those who adapt themselves to the change survive more.

Recently, I had a debate with my friend over release of films on OTT platforms compared to that of theaters. While people still flock in numbers to get a movie experience in theaters, number of good movies have also started releasing on the increasing OTT platforms.

My friend suggested that the possibility of movies releasing on OTT platform will not work in a country like us. People go to the theaters to get an experience which they cannot get by sitting at homes and by watching the same movie on television sets or hand-held devices.

He was right at that time and I could not defend myself much at that time. But it was also a fact that Indian audience lacked good content driven films due to the strong hold of distributors in Indian market.

Who can forget that a masterpiece film like Tumbaad was finding a hard way out to find the distributors and hence was in the making for almost six years. Paan Singh Tomar, in which late Mr Irfan Khan portrayed the role of an Indian runner turned dacoit too had similar issues. The film was complete but was also struggling to find the distributors at that time. And when finally both of these films were released, everybody got to see their magic.

Due to the strong hold of middlemen (Distributors), Indian audiences miss the magic of good films. What we get after spending thousands of bucks is a shitty, crappy remake of some of the other film with some item numbers in it and an unwanted twist which makes the whole movie watching experience a nightmare.

Introduction of newer and newer OTT platforms have paved way for small budget films to find the correct audience. Many big budget films too have now started to release on OTT platforms. And the outburst of Corona has only added fuel to the fire.

If a family goes out to watch a movie on a weekend it costs them somewhere around 1200 to 1500. So why won't they switch over to OTT platforms which offers even more - TV series, old and dubbed movies, sports telecast at the same rate ?

While distributors have warned Bollywood stars not to release their movies on OTT platforms, people on the other hand who are trapped in lock-down, have started to look out for good content across all platforms.

So now the question is that is this a start of new change ?