It was December 1991. Director Mahesh Bhatt’s Sadak, starring Sanjay Dutt and Pooja Bhatt, had just released. I had queued up outside Welfare Cinema in Ranchi, hoping to watch the first day first show.
With most tickets being sold in black, tickets at the box-office ran out as soon as it was my turn to buy one. Given that it was the ’90s, and everyone had a lot of time, I came back a couple of hours later to queue up for the second show. A helpful constable who had seen me queue up for the first show, got me the ticket for the second one.
Watching the movie turned out to be a miserable experience. The fans were not working. The seats were all broken and infested with bedbugs. And, I found Sadashiv Amrapurkar’s character in the movie extremely repulsive.
Cut to 2020, nearly 30 years on, Sadak 2, the sequel, is all set to release on an OTT (over the top) media platform. I can watch the movie lying down on my bed, sipping coffee intermittently. It also means that I don’t have to pay extra for exorbitantly priced popcorn and coffee that multiplexes sell these days. Also, I can watch the movie anytime I want to, and even pause it. And on top of everything else, if I don’t like the movie, I don’t have to watch it completely. Switching the TV off is easier than walking out of a cinema hall after having paid for it. On the flip side, watching anything on a TV cannot be the same as the big screen experience.
Over the past few months, as Covid-19 has spread and it has become clear that it isn’t going away any time soon, many movie producers have chosen to release their movies on OTT media platforms. It makes immense sense for them to do so.
Making movies is an expensive business. And unless a movie is released, there is no way that a producer can hope to recover the money invested. Also, many producers invest borrowed money into making movies. This money can only be repaid once the movie is released. Every month they don’t repay the money, they need to pay interest on the outstanding debt. Even when big studios are involved, unless a movie releases, the money invested in it remains stuck. This explains why movies of some of the biggest stars are releasing on OTT platforms.
For OTT platforms, buying up and releasing new movies make immense sense. Given that they are a new medium, they need to attract more and more people onto their platforms, and movies and cricket remain the easiest way to do so.
The strategy that helped private entertainment channels build a huge audience in the 1990s is playing out all over again. Even at that time, it was movie-related content (starting with film songs) that moved people away from Doordarshan to cable TV. This explains why some of the biggest TV entertainment channels have also gotten into the OTT business. The idea is to cannibalise their own business, before someone else does.
Of course, in all of this, the theatre owners and the multiplex owners are crying foul. Their monopoly over new movie releases has been broken. And whenever any monopoly is broken, the incumbents are bound to get hurt. A similar thing happened when the first automobiles started to make an appearance, the horse-owners didn’t like it one bit. But we all know how that played out.
Any new invention or innovation that offers more choice to the end-consumer should always be welcomed. If an individual wants to watch a movie only in a theatre, he will still be able to, once cinemas re-open post-pandemic. But entertainment is an important part of our daily lives, and right now, the new movie releases on OTT platforms are providing that.
Obviously, falling internet charges have made this strategy viable. Up until a few years back, one had to think before watching any video content on the phone, given how expensive internet bandwidth was.
As far as new filmmakers are concerned, OTT might just be a better platform for them. The way the film industry has evolved in the last two decades, a bulk of the money made by any movie is made in the first few days of its release. Basically, the first weekend decides which way the movie will go. Will it be a hit or a flop? Hence, the chance for the word of mouth to work its magic is very low.
On an OTT platform, once a movie lands (as the OTT platforms like to put it), it remains there. Hence, the movie has a chance to do well over a period of time, if word of mouth works in its favour, unlike in a cinema hall where most movies get pulled down at the end of one or two weeks.
Further, there is one area where OTT platforms will have to innovate. Currently, every OTT platform wants consumers to take on a subscription. They need to gradually move to a pay-per-view system. I may want to watch a cricket match on an OTT platform but nothing else they have to offer. Same goes with a movie. With micropayments becoming possible, this shouldn’t be difficult.
Let me conclude using a cliché, new movies on OTT platform is an idea whose time has come.